


check and mate

by helloimtrash



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Friendly Blackmail, Humor, Kaito has a crush, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Romance, Shinichi deals with heartbreak, a bit of angst, post-kyoto schooltrip arc, this is not a slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2020-05-16 18:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19323418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloimtrash/pseuds/helloimtrash
Summary: Kaito tucks a lock behind his ear, all slow and haughty and mock-seductive. Cheek propped on his left palm, he leans deep in Kudo’s space and reaches over to trace his jawline with two fingers. “How can I help, Detective?”“I need you." The words catch Kaito off-guard, but not as much as his tone does, fractured and absolutely miserable. He doesn’t get to react beyond a concerned frown before Kudou clears his throat and follows it up with, “I need you to help me steal something."





	1. check and mate

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I graduated high school! I'm back!
> 
> warning: starts off with some throwing up (the character, not you while reading, hopefully). non-consensual administration of drugs, but nothing malevolent or creepy.

 

Kaito has faced the detective of the East exactly once, back when he first picked up his dad’s mantle at what he likes to call a pro-bono heist, and that one showdown has ingrained itself in his memory as deeply traumatic and alarmingly _wack_ when it ended with him nearly shot and nearly _caught_ (thrice).

When he finds himself fondly reminiscing about it, which seems to happen every time he catches a glance of the clock tower, he tells himself that it had been a series of rookie mistakes—lack of research, no backup plans, complete and utter underestimation of the opponent, etc., etc.—that had led to him dangling two hundred feet above the ground with basically nothing but hubris up his sleeves.

But it is only now, merely three and a half minutes after the official start of the heist, as he’s crumpled to his knees on the floor of this feodal museum bathroom stall ralphing back up the peri-peri chicken he’d gorged himself with at lunch with Aoko, that he’s realizing that, perhaps, the issue didn’t lay in his oversized ego, but in a totally separate one that hadn’t been and still isn't under his control.

Kudou Shinichi is _terrifying._

_“No one moves. He’s cornered.”_

_“But he’s not anywhere in sight!”_

The scoff, soft and smug, that blows in the earpiece he managed to borrow from an oblivious task force member only confirms his conclusion—which he comes to between two gags, with bile stinging his throat and bare knuckles clutching the toilet seat like a lifeline. The part of his mind that isn’t busy running his options provides him with vague flashbacks of late night hangovers with friends, but it completely shuts down—all of it—when he hears a quiet _fuck_ somewhere behind him.

Ah, shit. He hasn’t locked the stall.

Sparing a glance behind him, he only catches a flash of _red_ and black before his gag reflex makes him spin back around to empty the rest of his stomach.

A pause.

”Don’t mistake this as a reaction at your sight, Detective,” KID manages to say around his hoarse throat.

“Unbelievable. I’m going to kill him.” Simple words, filled with disbelief and ire, whispered to himself as he moves closer and cups the thief’s neck. Then, a bit louder, “I’m sorry about this.”

"What?" Kaito scowls, wiping the corner of his mouth with the inside of his wrist. “Did you do something to me?”

“This wasn’t what was supposed to happen,” the detective explains, and there’s something like a wince in his voice, “I...slipped something in your drink – it was really easy, by the way. You really should be more aware of your surroundings.”

“Oh, screw you,” Kaito utters. Yeah, he  _had_  let his guards down, but can you blame him? The only resistance he’d encountered these last _months_ had been Nakamori.

He should do something, he knows that, but his stomach twists and turns in painful ways and acid is stinging his throat, so he just shoves the detective’s hand off and reaches over to flush the regurgitated chicken along with KID’s persona.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Kudou repeats. By no means discouraged by Kaito’s cat-like hostility, he reaches towards the thief’s shoulders and clicks off his cape. “I think it’s harmless.”

“After the severe nausea and the crippling dizziness passes, maybe.”

Kudou winces. “It should wear off in a few minutes. It was just supposed to incapacitate you long enough for me to...”

“Hey!” Kaito protests when his wrists are handcuffed behind his back, cold metal pressed against bare skin. “Buy me dinner first, maybe?”

His hat follows, and suddenly Kudou’s hands are all over him. On his shoulders, gently pushing him back against the wall; up his shirt, emptying his pockets and stripping him off stolen police equipment before dumping it all on the floor; on his cheeks, brushing the bangs off his forehead, and then he reaches up, up, up to his monocle, gaze burning with curiosity locked with his.

“Didn’t know you played dirty, detective,” Kaito whispers.

The monocle’s off.

There’s a pause, before Kudou breaks into a confused frown—which Kaito mirrors, ignoring the swing-beat against his ribcage.

“I have,” Kudou is squinting at him, “I have no idea who you are,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I have no idea who you’re supposed to be.”

Incredible. Kaito scoffs, offended. “We _met_.”

By the blankness in his eyes, Kudou doesn’t remember. Kaito knows he should be on his knees profusely thanking Lady Luck but he can’t help the outrage welling up in him. “How can you not–did I make such _little_ impact that you forgot about my existence the second I got out of your sight?”

Kudou looks a little thrown. “I–"

“... _Wow_ ,” Kaito breathes out, looking away.

“Are you pouting?” The detective’s voice is laced with disbelief. “Stop pouting. KID, stop pouting. You’re handcuffed.”

Kaito stubbornly stays silent even when Kudou’s hand around his biceps lifts him on his feet. He feels like shit, heavy head and throbbing temples, but he doesn’t falter. He rolls the lockpick he’d discreetly retrieved between his fingers and manages to slot it in but stops short, brows furrowed in confusion, when Kudou puts his own police radio down amidst the plethora of random items he’d found in KID’s pockets.

“You’re not turning me in?”

Kudou doesn’t reply. Instead, he drops a sports bag on top of the toilet’s lowered lid before taking out an abhorrent, horrid, repulsive weapon of _social suicide_ in the form of a leopard-printed khaki sweater with one hand, and stuffing KID’s jacket, tie, hat, monocle and cape in it with the other. “Why do you have so many accessories,” he fusses, struggling to zip the bag closed.

“It’s called having style,” Kaito retorts, vexed. “Clearly, you should take some notes.”

He eyes him up and down for emphasis, from the worn-out red sneakers and boring, black straight-cut jeans to the cherry red sweatshirt a size too big and the _Big Osaka_ cap he takes off to shove over Kaito’s disheveled locks.

It shields his eyes and he breathes in the scent of cologne for a split-second before Kudou lifts the tip a bit so Kaito could actually see. He comes face to face with eyes similar to the sapphire abandoned on the floor.

“Hi,” Kaito says.

“Hi,” Kudou replies.

He’s staring at him like he’s still trying hard to remember their so-called encounter. Kaito stares back as he fiddles with the pick between his fingers—so easy, it’d take him only a second, but something in Kudou’s expression stops him from making a move, an undercurrent of _tired_ and life-weary and dangerously on edge. It pokes at his sick curiosity, the exhaustion that seems beyond physical. The odd, out-of-character behavior.

"Listen," Kudou says. "I'm going to take off the handcuffs, because we need to get out of here unnoticed, and I need you to put this on."  
  
Kaito raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm not putting that on."

Kudou looks at the sweater he’s brandishing with confusion. “What’s wrong with it?"

“Um, its mere existence is an affront to God herself,” Kaito’s nose scrunches up in disgust. “Under what hallucinogenic drug were you when you bought this… this cursed bane of mankind?”

“I just grabbed the first thing,” Kudou replies, patience visibly growing thin, “regardless of it being a reflection of my insufficient fear of a potential higher power or not.”

“–I’m sorry you don’t have any sense of self-respect or a reputation to maintain but I do,” Kaito concludes, talking over him.

"A reputation to–nobody knows who you are!"

“And that includes _you_ , apparently."

“We never met!” Kudou snaps, lowering the sweater to shoot him a dark glare. “I would have remembered, if we did!”

Kaito falls silent with a scowl and looks away, blatantly ignoring the sweater Kudou’s waving under his nose.

“Do _not_ make me use force.”

“Ha!” he scoffs. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh, for _God’_ s sake,” Kudou grouses, trying to force the collar down Kaito’s head. “Just! Put it on!”

Kaito stumbles back onto the closed toilet lid with a surprised squawk, and the metal of his handcuffs clinks loudly as he tries and fails to raise his arms, only succeeding in dropping the lockpick. He pushes his legs up between the two of them, keeping a fumbling Kudou at a distance.

“Just–“

“NO.”

He freezes when he accidentally shoves his left knee up Kudou’s chin and the detective stumbles back with an _ow_ , hand around his jaw.  

Kaito doesn’t apologize. “See what happens when you try to force me into what is literally my anathema?” he says, staring with a concerned frown.

Kudou  sighs and pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Okay, ok. How about–”

Kaito blinks as Kudou pulls his own sweatshirt over his head, the black t-shirt underneath sliding up revealing skin for a split-second before falling back in place. He re-emerges with messy hair and an annoyed expression and Kaito looks at the hoodie dropped on his lap, plain, cherry red, ‘CASUAL’ embroidered across the chest with bold white english letters.  

“I’ll wear it myself,” Kudou finishes, proceeding to do exactly that.

Kaito can’t help but let out a snicker when Kudou pulls down the hems of the calamity with an exhale. The detective glares daggers at him. “Not. A word.”

“Actually, you’re really pulling it off,” Kaito nods, lips twitching upwards. “I’m dazzled, truly. Flabbergasted.”   

Kudou looks blasé, but let it go, glancing at the watch around his wrist. “Alright. You wasted us enough time. I’m going to remove the handcuffs. Put the hoodie on, gather your stuff and meet me in the parking lot. Leave the gem. Don’t disappear.”

“And why, pray tell, do you seem to be laboring under the impression that I’m going to happily comply?”

“Because I know what you look like,” Kudou replies without hesitation, leveling his gaze. “And I can easily find you and turn you in, this time.”

Kaito narrows his eyes, but lets him lean over to unlock the cuffs. His nose and lips brush Kudou’s shoulder as he breathes in perfume. “Why aren’t you turning me in _now_? What are you doing, Kudou?”

They drop to the floor in a resounding clink and Kudou turns his head to look at him, face inches away. “Don’t disappear,” he repeats, mint-scented breath blowing onto Kaito’s nose.

He straightens and shoulders the sports bag before shooting him a look, lips pursued. Kaito stares back while rubbing his wrists, eyebrows raised as he waits for the detective’s next move.

It’s not what he expects, because Kudou’s traits soften and his shoulders slump and his lips mouth a quiet, “Please _.”_

He leaves before Kaito can even react.

.

.

It’s not as much the fact that his identity is in jeopardy as it is that _Kudou Shinichi_ is the one holding him by the balls.

Kaito can handle Hakuba or Nakamori because he _knows_ them, he knows how they work, what they want and he can act accordingly. But Kudou? What he knows about the guy is limited to the little he dug out during a research spree the morning after the clock tower heist—not much, weirdly : a few shots on the newspapers’ front page, couple mentions in headlines, and that’s about it. Kaito distinctly recalls feeling a little thrown by the lack of digital information, as if the height of the detective’s fame had taken place in the nineties and not merely a year and a half ago.   

He thought he’d grasped a general idea of Kudou’s personality from their brief, out-of costume encounter. A well-intentioned detective with a self-destructive tendency of caring more about other people than himself—lawful good, Kaito had concluded after two minutes of interaction.

He’d misdiagnosed.

“You’re chaotic,” he concludes as soon as he gets in the car, slamming shut the passenger door. “I don’t know in which category yet, but you are an agent of chaos.”  

Kudou’s face is lit by the screen of his iPhone, thumbs hovering over the tactile keyboard as he shoots him a _look_ and clicks his tongue, the sound blending in with that of the lock screen when he presses the power button. It resounds in the car, loud amid the thick silence of the parking lot. “What’re you talking about?”

“Um, the alignment chart? ...Dungeons and Dragons? No?” Kaito blinks in front of his blank stare. “Wow. It’s like I’m talking to a second Hakuba.” He tilts his head on an afterthought. “Well, one with a penchant for aiding and abetting.”

Kudou’s head spins around to look at him, and Kaito crosses his arms, tongue grinding against his teeth. “What, thought I wouldn’t notice how surprisingly easy it was to get through security? Didn’t bump into anyone, which is _weird_ , to say the least. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out you placed the officers strategically so I could get out. _No one moves,_ ” he mimics with a smirk, voice lowered a shade to match the detective’s. “Truly some fine work. Have you ever considered a change in career? I could always use a sexy assistant.”

Kudou’s tone is ice. “I’m not here to take compliments from a criminal.”

Kaito scoffs. “I’d be offended if it weren’t for the fact that you’re as neck-deep into this as I am, Detective.” He pretends to count on his fingers. “Blackmail, non-consensual administration of drugs, complicity in a crime, obstruction of justice–”

He stops short when Kudou reaches over, fingers trapping his in a balled up fist. He releases them almost immediately, though. “I couldn’t risk...” he trails off, bringing a hand over his face, whispery voice gaining volume as he adds, “There’s a... a broader picture to take in.”

“By all means,” Kaito prompts him into elaborating with a hand gesture reminiscent of a reverence.

Kudou shifts in his seat to face him. He doesn’t respond immediately, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He’s an open book with bleeding ink.

He feels invasive, for some reason, like he’s trespassing, so he breaks eye contact and glances over his shoulder. Notices the sports bag on the backseat. Checks out the dashboard. Handcuffs. Orange pills bottle. iPhone. Incredibly ugly hula dancer figurine. Glasses. “Faulty vision runs in the family?” he inquires on a random thought.

“Very funny. How’s your stomach?”

“Fucked up, by the way,” Kaito hisses, still bitter, before intertwining his fingers behind his neck. “But let’s get to the point. You need my help, right? Talk.”

Even in the semi-dark only cleared by the fluorescent red & blue dash lights, Kaito can pinpoint the exact moment he shuts down, at the tightness of his lips and the edge of reluctance in the jut of his jaw; he can read the hesitation preceding it from the quick, quarter-of-a-second way he narrows his eyes and sticks out his tongue, words stuck on the tip of it but not quite _out_ , like a glass filled to the brink menacing to brim over at the slightest touch _._

Kaito tucks a lock behind his ear, all slow and haughty and mock-seductive. Cheek propped on his left palm, he leans deep in Kudo’s space and reaches over to trace his jawline with two fingers. “How can I help, Detective?”  

It spills.

“I need you." The words catch Kaito off-guard, but not as much as his tone does, fractured and absolutely _miserable_. He doesn’t get to react beyond a concerned frown before Kudou clears his throat and follows it up with, “I need you to help me steal something."

.

.

Kaito has dropped the KID persona the moment Kudou encircled his neck back in the bathroom stall, but it’s only now, as he jams four cheese-flavored tortilla chips in his mouth at once and Kudou’s staring at him with owlish, horror-filled eyes, that he’s realizing it.

It’s not rare, the transition—on the contrary. But unthinkingly? That never happens. He’s startled by how natural it had been to drop the act, swipe the glitz of the moonlight thief in favor of fumbling with a family-sized bag of nacho cheese Doritos in a 7/11 parking lot at nearly 1AM. Kudou stares at him, eyes narrowed and chin tucked in and nose scrunched up in barely veiled disgust.

“What, want some?” Kaito asks, shaking the packet at him.          

“No, thank you. I’m really just trying to not,” he flexes his fingers and eyes the three empty chocolate bar wrappers on the dash, “catch something.”

Kaito chuckles, tipping the bag over his mouth. “Look,” he says, turning to him completely and ignoring the detective’s wince when his cheetle-covered fingers brush against the seat's leather. “You’ve been a good guy buying me all of this massively unhealthy junk food, thank you, but you also kind of drugged me? So... you can see how those two cancel each other out.”

“About that,” Kudou says, lips pursed. “I really didn’t know–the drug was made for pranks.”

Kaito stares, dragging the silence for two beats to convey exactly how utterly _ridiculous_ — “Yeah, I figured. The part where I _vomited_ my lunch? Comedic genius.”

“It wasn’t supposed to do that. Or, if it was, I didn’t know. The person who’d developed it didn’t actually… tell me the effects. If I knew, I wouldn’t have–”

“You come into my house, you lie to my _face_ –”

“We’re not in your house, this is my car,” Kudou says, actually looking confused, and despite everything Kaito wants to laugh.

“Whatever,” he sulks instead, leaning back against the car seat and crossing his arms. “Don’t talk to me.”

The detective rolls his eyes, before he leans over, palms joined together, “Look, you hate me. That’s fair. But I _need_ this one favour from you, and then you can just go. We part ways, I won’t seek you out–I promise–and you never have to see me again.”

“Never?” Kaito asks around crisp crumbs. “Never seems kind of extreme.”

That gets a frown to Kudou’s face. “I mean you’ll probably see Conan around, I guess,” he says, straightening. “Though if you get the job done...”

Kaito licks the powder off the tip of his fingers while maintaining eye contact.

“Is this the part where I beg for your edification? 'Cuz I’m not gonna do that,” he clarifies when the silence stretches out. “I’m pissed, if you couldn’t tell.”

The detective’s brows furrow, as if he actually _couldn’t_ tell. And, okay, maybe Kaito has been sending mixed signals, but his way of being has always been veneered by a layer of _it’s fine_. It doesn’t help that he thinks Kudou’s hot.  

“So...” Kudou’s face drops, looking like a goddamn kicked _puppy_. “That’s a no?”

The corner of Kaito’s lips twitch upwards at the question and he makes a show of looking around. “I thought this was blackmail?”  

“We have a system,” the detective replies, and he sounds dog-tired.

“Nu-uh, I have a system with the _tiny_ tantei. You? Not so much.”

Kudou looks like he wants to punch him. “This is _not_ the time for technicalities, KID.”

“What?” he laughs. “It’s the truth. I almost died last time that little bastard asked for a–I’m sorry,” he adds, hopping on a new train of thoughts without leaving him a chance to answer. “I don’t get it. If you’re leaving me the choice, why the _fuck_ did you put in place this whole bastard scheme?”

“I wanted to see if you were hot,” Kudou deadpans.

Kaito rarely loses control of his poker face; right now, though, he’s gaping and he can’t stop, face contorted into a mix of amusement and disbelief. “... Was that a joke? Are you secretly funny?”

Kudou simply rolls his eyes. "Can I count on you or should I ask Lupin instead?"

Kaito blinks dramatically and lets out a scoff in incredulous astonishment. “Woah, okay. Hold on a second.” It’s jealousy that washes over him, blindsiding possessiveness laced with irritation at the mention of the gun-armed thief. He takes a second to acknowledge that he’s being manipulated—easily, in this state—but he lets it happen anyway. “Let’s not make any rash decisions that we’ll regret later on.”

“I hate to break this to you," Kudou says, and it looks like he really does, "but everything about this is going to be rash. It’s kind of a time-sensitive thing.”

He frowns. “Meaning?”

“Five hours, that’s all I have.”

“Are you dying?” Kaito asks, genuinely.

“No,” Kudou drawls, looking at him like he’s an idiot.

He doesn’t follow it up with a clarification and Kaito doesn't want to ask so, instead, he says, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Kaito repeats, tucking a leg underneath him. “I’m not exactly sure what kinda crap you’re involved in, but it looks like you’re in _dire_ need of a friend right now and I have a paper due tomorrow that I don’t wanna start on just yet, so yeah, let’s go steal your rock.”

A tentative smile lifts the corner of Kudou’s lips. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes but… “It’s not a rock.”

He’s really pretty.

Kaito rolls his eyes and reaches back into the Doritos bag on his lap. “Fine, let’s go steal your illicit drugs, _whatever._ Drive."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AM BACK. i've had this chapter in my laptop since january and i only recently picked it up (chap 2 half written!) because i GRADUATED. the joy of never having to play a teamsport ever again gives me inspiration, apparently. so do these two dorks. i... have missed them.
> 
> So, this work. Please don't slander me before reading the rest, i swear shinichi's actions make sense; chap2 will clear some stuff up. Title comes from tvtropes.org. I was browsing while bored, found a trope with the same name and thought it was cool and fitting for this WIP.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it!


	2. 3:13am.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wash your hands consistently & stay safe! love you from belgium.

It starts when a neighborhood-wide game of hide & seek with the Junior Detective League leads them into a dead chemist's apartment. The culprit, who turns out to be the woman next door with a long-held grudge over several noise complaints, gets tricked into confessing, and Conan deems the case closed and dealt with—at least, until Haibara grabs his sleeve on the way home and says, "I remember where I know him from."

At her words, Conan flashes back to the metallic boxes and the pill bottles he'd noticed lying around without giving them much thought. Chemist suffering from heart disease, after all, but—new information!—one that had worked on the APTX alongside Sherry. It only made sense for him to have _samples_.

Unfortunately, Conan's too late. Silver lining: so are _they_. By the time the apartment complex catches fire—that same night—the police had already gone over the deceased’s belongings. Evidence bagged, flat emptied… But Shinichi knows _them,_ knows far too well the way they dealt with loose ends. It's only a matter of time before either a covert agent gets ahold of their dead coworker’s possessions or the place gets blown up.

So if Shinichi wants to make a move, it has to happen tonight.

Coincidentally, it's a full moon, which means Kaitou KID’s probably around. He confirms this over breakfast with a quick google search that briefs him in the latest chunk of bling that had caught the thief’s attention: an eight-figure worth sapphire showcased in a Nobunaga-themed exhibition that had belonged to the warlord’s favorite concubine.

An idea begins to sprout in his mind as he finishes reading the heist notice, staring pensively at the KID doodle.

It's not a good idea. It's neither noble nor ethical, and when he thinks about it more, his face scrunches up in a grimace, but then he remembers his last conversation with Ran, remembers cold eyes and one-word answers, and decides that he doesn't have to _like_ the idea for it to work. The broader picture justifies the means, after all, right? As long as no one gets hurts…

So, with a half-baked plan in mind and one shot at getting it right, he swallows the temporary antidote he stole from Haibara's bag when she wasn't looking, last week.

No effort is required from Kudou Shinichi to work with the law. Despite the Inspector's reluctance, he's pretty much handed a police radio by a starry-eyed task force member as soon as he shows up. It's a little weird, and a lot refreshing, and it makes guilt churn in the pit of his stomach.

Surprisingly, it doesn't take him long to figure out KID's disguise—an art major girl in an oversized Tōdai sweatshirt and a Dr. Pepper can curled around her fingers in which Shinichi slips the tiny, yellow pill he'd gotten from Agasa yesterday. It's a newly-developed incapacitant—harmless, the Professor had reassured him. He'd originally started working on it with prank purposes in mind, his plan being to put them out the week leading to April Fools and get instantly rich.

He doesn't know what the drug's supposed to do, Agasa having been adamant on keeping the surprise ("you'll see. it's _really_ funny.") but either the Professor had accidentally gotten something in the development process _seriously_ wrong or he simply had a very dark sense of humor, because KID is incapacitated, alright, but not in the way he’s supposed to be. Not in a funny way. 

"Don’t mistake this as a reaction at your sight, Detective," he says when Shinichi curses, and his voice is hoarse. Shinichi might as well have. He feels hideous.

Seeing him like that, scrunched over the toilet seat—it’s a wake-up call, because when the thought _this wasn't the plan_ crosses his mind it's quickly followed by _what plan?_ He's only working with fragments of one he'd stitched together a few hours ago, and he's counting on Kaitou KID— _of all people_ —to not tear it all apart by either pulling a disappearing act regardless of his bluff or via a simple, _no._

Which—to Shinichi's utter relief and complete confusion—he doesn't. Instead, he jams four chips into his mouth at once and says, "Drive."

The plan is all kinds of crazy but it's fitting, really, because so is KID. 

"Okay, let me be clear–"

"Seatbelt," Shinichi cuts off, only to get promptly ignored.

“–If we’re doing this, I don’t want any backseat driving going on. I’m serious,” he insists even when Shinichi shows no sign of protesting. “You give me one order, I'm leaving you for dead and I’m going home. Just let me do my thang, okay? Do you have gum? I feel disgusting."

Shinichi doesn't bother answering because the thief is already rummaging around the glove compartment where he finds an open pack of mint-flavored black-black chewing-gum, missing a stick—the one Shinichi had anxiously chewed in his car before the heist.

KID unwraps a piece of gum and pops it into his mouth. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going, by the way.”

“The MPD building,” Shinichi says, because while he can’t exactly be forthcoming with the what and the why, he figures this information at least is on a need-to-know basis. He chances a glance at his side when he's met by stiff silence. "Relax, I'm not turning you in."  

KID meets his gaze, and Shinichi can see an interested glint in his eyes. Museful silence, then, not stiff.

“That’s not what I was thinking. You’re looking for something that’s been collected as evidence in a case?”

“Found property,” Shinichi corrects, before grimacing. “Well, belongings of a victim, more specifically. He’s dead. I closed his case yesterday.”

Nope, he can’t ignore it. It’s definitely bothering him. With his eyes on the road and an annoyed click of the tongue, he reaches over to buckle KID in.

“... So, the filing room," KID resumes, a slight crack in his voice that earns him a curious glance. He clears his throat. "Yeah, sure, that’s easy. Never went that far in so this should be interesting. What?” he asks when Shinichi shoots him a cutting look. "I like a challenge."

That is _not_ what the look meant. "You've been to the Metropolitan Police offices?"

A shrug. "Yeah, a couple times. It's fun to leave jewels on Nakamori's desk and imagine the fits of rage he must have. Plus, they have a mean coffee machine on the tenth floor. You know the one."

He does. Shinichi bites back the amused smile that threatens to surface. "So, what do you have in mind?"

“Oh, dude,” KID says, and then he excitedly starts talking about _hiding in plain sight_ and blind camera angles and emergency exits and he somehow makes it all seem like art instead of the crime it is. He doesn't stop until Shinichi parks a street away from the police precinct they're planning to break into.

This is fine.

"I'm surprised you asked for help and didn't just... do it yourself," KID says when Shinichi not only manages to keep up with his rambling but also chimes in with additional information.

“I tried,” he grimaces.

KID's face splits into a far too-pleased grin. "What? Elaborate! Oh my god.”

Shinichi rolls his eyes. "I couldn't sneak in. It’s swarming with agents. They just come and go so there’s basically no time of the day where the corridors are empty, and I'm nowhere near familiar enough with the building layout to be smooth about it. And even if I _could_ get around all of them, there's a card system. Every officer has a keycard, you can't unlock the door without it.”

KID hums, two fingers around his chin.

“What’re you thinking?” Shinichi asks.

He’s a detective, at heart, but Conan had taught him to think less in deconstruction and unraveling and more in terms of _how can I get around this?_ It happened progressively, over time, so he didn’t really notice the shift in his approaches until now, as he’s staring at KID with narrowed eyes and one hand on the steering wheel. “The windows?" he tries to guess. "You better not. It looks like a painful and difficult climb, and it’s not really the discretion I was hoping for. By the way, I'm okay with disguises, but I draw the line at having to squeeze into a dusty air vent with you. Are we knocking someone out?”

“Detective,” KID exclaims, and it looks like he’s aiming for dismayed but it comes out as _delighted_.

Shinichi barely holds back his eye roll. “So?”

Of course, KID can’t really be _guessed_ _—_ Shinichi comes to fully understanding that when the thief grins and says, “Everything you suggested is just so _rude._  Let’s take the front door.”

.

.

KID surprises Shinichi once, and then keeps doing it.

It’s not that he’s not aware that KID’s essentially a patchwork of skills, but there’s this reality to their interactions that makes it near-impossible to conciliate the guy covering the passenger seat in dorito dust to the phantom thief wanted in six different countries. It’s not Shinichi’s fault; KID’s just got this dimension to him that makes it so easy to forget that, right, he’s the guy who walked mid-air amidst a swarm of police helicopters with his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face.

It boils down to this: KID’s skilled to the point of frightening, and Shinichi keeps getting reminded of that in little moments.

Exhibit A: the keycard that materializes between his index and middle finger when Shinichi points out the only hole in the _let’s just walk to the place_ plan. Shinichi’s poker face is shitty, always has been, which is why he reaches up to clasp KID’s wrist in disbelief to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. 

He looks up at KID. “ _When?_ ” Shinichi doesn’t leave him any time to answer before he goes on, letting go of KID’s arm to curl his fingers around his chin. “You couldn’t have swiped it from the officer we talked to on the way here as there hadn’t been any physical contact, and we didn’t bump into anyone, even for a brief moment. The elevator… ? No, the only person with us was a receptionist and they don’t have master keys. Plus you were chewing your hangnail the entire time. When could you have…?”

Shinichi tunes back in to the sound of KID’s snickers. “Woah, Meitantei’s aura is scary.”

He scowls. “Do not tell me.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” he grins, walking into the room. While Shinichi was muttering to himself, he’d swiped the card through the reader and had pushed the door open. The lights flicker for a faltering second before plunging the room in electrical white lighting.

Shinichi decides to let it go for now as he eyes the shelves and shelves of boxes holding gathered evidence and found property. He steps up next to KID. “I can’t believe they just let us walk in here.”

“The secret is walking with a purpose. No one’s going to stop you if you look confident enough.” That checks out. KID saunters about like he owns the place, all raised chin and slumped shoulders and bright smile blinding whoever passed them. “You think there’s a chance I find some of my stuff in here? So many of my cards have been taken.” 

“You fired them at police officers,” Shinichi reminds him, moving to study the closest cabinet. The room is messy, boxes stacked on each other unevenly. “I doubt it. Only recently collected items end up here, and it’s a temporary thing. Everything's eventually moved to a guarded storage facility. It doesn’t seem to be organized alphabetically here.”

KID throws his head back and lets out a groan that Shinichi would have called dramatic if he didn't share the sentiment.

“Look for Fujinuma Hiroto,” he instructs, reaching for the nearest box. For the first time in a long time, he feels success within his grasp, and he really wants to grab hold of it, just once, just for this. “I solved his case yesterday morning so his stuff shouldn’t be that far in–”

Shinichi jumps at the sudden poof of smoke and cautiously freezes, not knowing what to expect. When it clears, he stares down at his now-gloved hands before looking up at KID, who’s leaning against the door with his arms and ankles crossed.

“I’m already going to have to doctor security tapes. I don’t wanna have to wipe this entire room clean, too.” 

Shinichi nods. "Good call." He flexes his fingers around the fabric of the familiar, white gloves. “Are these yours? They're really soft.”

“Oh! Thanks, it's hypoallergenic satin.” He pushes off the wall and moves across the room, out of sight. “Fujinuma, you said? There was something about him on the news, this afternoon. He got stabbed to death, right? Then his place caught fire? Lucky for him, in that order.”

“Don’t joke about something like that,” Shinichi reprimands. There’s a _pfft_ somewhere to his left before they fall into silence.

Shinichi’s in the middle of trawling through one of the lower shelves when KID pipes up, “Hey, what time is it? I still need to write a paper for tomorrow.”

Shinichi sighs. “Why did you put it off until the last possible minute? You _know_ you had a thing tonight.”

He’s not looking, but he hears a grimace in the thief’s voice when he says, “It’s a history paper.”

"Not a fan of past events?”

“Eh, I’m just not interested. I’ve tried, I really did! I went to class once.”

He scoffs. “Obviously, you’ve tried everything you could."

“It doesn't matter, I got my plan. This paper’s worth half my grade, right? The deadline’s tomorrow at six PM, so I’ll just submit it, like, five minutes before that, and hopefully score high enough to afford to skip next semester, too."

“Sounds like a foolproof plan to me. Where’s the paper, KID?”

“Fuck you, Kudou,” KID replies, to which Shinichi snorts. “It’s your fault, okay? I wasn’t exactly _planning_ on this side trip, now was I? I’d be knocking down some Red Bulls in front of a Word doc right now if it weren’t for you.”

It occurs to him, out of blue, that this is the first time KID’s actively volunteering personal information—it's completely irrelevant, nothing he can use to put a name on his face, and Shinichi finds that he prefers it that way. He gave up the right to play the game when he slipped that pill in KID's soda can.

"What's it about?” he ventures, uncertainly. “The paper."

The reply is almost instant. “Historical negationism. We’re supposed to write about a method that’s been used to distort the record. I know what you’re gonna say, that practically writes itself–” Shinichi closes his mouth, “–but I feel like everyone’s gonna go for the obvious topics like Japanese war crimes or the holocaust denial, and I don’t wanna write nines pages that’ll say the same stuff as a dozen other essays, you know?”

His voice gets closer and closer until Shinichi bumps into him as they round the same corner.

“Oh, hi,” KID says, messy locks tucked under the _Big Osaka_ cap tucked under the hoodie of Shinichi’s sweatshirt. Shinichi doesn’t know why that’s the first thing he notices, followed by the fact that his hands are buried in the pockets of his pants. It’s the white KID pants, hems rolled over his ankles. 

“Hi,” he replies.

KID tilts his head to the right. “Found your guy.”

 _Fujinuma,_ reads the cardboard box in front of which Shinichi squats. He doesn’t have to dig in far before he comes across a bottle with a laminated label that says _4869._

“Sherlock?” KID reads over his shoulder. “How fitting. What is it, some kind of new drug? Didn’t know you were into that sort of thing, Meitantei. Should I be worried? Stage an intervention?” 

“It’s not a drug,” Shinichi says, before backtracking, “Well, it is, but it’s not what you think it is.”

“What is it?”

“The poison that caused the, you know,” he glances up at KID, “the Conan predicament.”

Who nods. “Right. Of course, yeah, the Conan predicament,” he says. Then, softer, “The predicament of Conan. Conan’s… predicament.”

Shinichi stares down at the bottle in his hand. “Yeah…” A year and a half of searching for it, and now it’s right _there_ — 

Wait, no it isn’t. Shinichi jerks his head around to see KID holding it up to his face, examining the contents. “If I swallow one–”

“Don’t joke,” he hisses, falling to his knees as he reaches for it. “Give it back, KID.”

But the thief holds it out of reach, right arm stretched far and left hand mashed against Shinichi’s face. “If I swallow one,” he repeats, “would it affect my brain?”

The question makes Shinichi so perplexed he stops flailing. “Wh–no? It doesn’t work that way.” And thank God for that. He doesn’t want to think about the way things would have gone if the APTX reverted the mind back to its seven year old’s state as well as the body, like KID seems to assume. He frowns, half-amusedly. Did KID think he’d been some kind of child genius? That he’d been thinking like an _actual,_ albeit smart, seven-year old? “The compound doesn’t touch your intellect. Or memories, for that matter.”

“Huh.”

“Now give it back,” Shinichi demands, holding his hand out. He’s having separation anxiety with the damn thing, and he has a feeling he’d be paranoid until the moment he hands the pills over to Haibara. “You’d probably die anyway, if you take one. Chances are against you.”

KID looks up at him, seemingly perturbed. “Death is a potential side effect?”

“Death is the intended purpose,” Shinichi grumbles, snatching the bottle back. “The, er, other thing, is the potential side effect.”

KID falls quiet. 

Shinichi’s surprised he didn’t know the specifics around the toxin, but it makes sense. The thief had figured his identity out but they’d never actually talked about the _what_ and the _how_ , because KID doesn’t ask nosey questions. It’s something Shinichi likes about him. He'd said, “ _I need help stealing a dead man’s medication_ ,” and KID had met him with, _“where?”_

But he also finds that he doesn’t mind answering his questions, in the rare occasions he does ask.

It’s just KID. 

“Is that really necessary?” the thief inquires when Shinichi takes out the orange ibuprofen bottle he’d swiped from the Professor and starts swapping out the pills. He’d crouched in front of him, watching thoughtfully.

“They’d notice if it was gone.”

“The police? No, they wouldn’t. I doubt inventory checks entail counting each pill of this random dead guy.”  

“Not them,” Shinichi mumbles, and then promptly busies himself with peeling the gloves off his fingers to stop his mind from spiraling as it always did whenever he thought of the black syndicate and the constant, looming threat they posed. Difficult feat, lately, in light of recent developments that had exposed exactly how widespread the crows were and how deep this thing ran. Shinichi had known that, in theory, had never let his optimism lead to underestimation, but there’s knowing and there’s _knowing_ , and the latter brought in its own share of night terrors and forgotten dreams that left a bitter taste in his throat.

He fails at not spiraling, clearly, because he doesn’t notice KID standing up until an extended hand pops up under his nose. 

Shinichi stares at it for a second, before looking up at KID. He’s not smiling, but even though half his face is obscured by a baseball cap, there’s something relaxed to his expression as he says, “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”  

"Yeah," Shinichi replies after a beat, and takes his hand.

.

.

On their way down, the elevator doors slide open somewhere between the tenth and seventh floor and a disheveled, tired-looking woman steps in, still crammed in her KID task force gear. She takes one look at KID and drops her slows blinks in favour of a delighted grin. “Kuroba! Wow, long time no see. What’re you doing here?”  

Shinichi stills.

and

slowly 

turns to look at KID.  

“Momo-chan! How did the heist go?”

He wouldn’t suspect a damn thing, if he didn’t have a grasp on what’s happening, but he knows how utterly fucked _Kuroba_ (?) must feel right now, knows what to look for—and yeah, both KID’s friendly smile and his posture, hands buried deep in his pockets, had a subtle crisp edge to them—or maybe he’s imagining it? The thief’s good.

Little moments.

“Deemed shortest KID heist so far,” Momo sighs. “Still terrible for us, no doubt, no doubt, but it happened, like, so fast, like four minutes, I’m not even kidding. In and out. We lost the rock.” 

KID lets out an impressed whistle. “That's KID-sama for you. The Inspector must be fuming.” 

“Is that why you’re here?” she frowns disapprovingly. “Don’t worry about him, he’s a grown man. You should be in bed! It’s a school night, you know.” 

Shinichi coughs to cover his laugh and looks the other side when KID glares in his direction.

The gesture effectively catches Momo's attention, who first blinks at his sweater and then at him. "Friend of yours?"

"Right, yeah, sorry. Momo-chan, Kudou Shinichi. We're friends. Feel free to ignore the leopard print, I'm planning to burn it first chance I get, don't worry, I’m on it." 

Momo chuckles as Shinichi rolls his eyes—he's done that a lot, tonight. "Is the Inspector okay?" he asks. 

“Sure,” she shrugs. “It's just that we all expected KID to, like, immediately return the gem, right? Like he usually does on full moons. But he didn't though, for some reason, so Inspector Nakamori spent half an hour fighting with the curator trying to convince him that they’ll get it back eventually. Which, they _will_. And then he was moping in his office doing insurance paperwork. You missed him, though, he went home ten minutes ago, like _you should be doing_ ,” she adds, shooting a pointed look at KID. 

“Probably frustrated he got beaten in under four minutes,” KID says, ignoring her last remark. “That has to be a record, right?”  

“Whatever,” she sulks. “We’ll get him next time!”

“That’s the spirit,” KID agrees. 

Shinichi pauses, frowns at the weird sensation of déjà-vu that hazily washes over him, but then the elevator’s dinging open on the third floor and he snaps out of it. 

“I’m gonna go get changed,” Momo says, backing out as she gives Shinichi a warm smile. “It was nice to meet you, Kudou-kun.” She shoots a stern glare and a pointed finger at KID. “Kuroba Kaito, you better go home, young man, and no detours!” 

Shinichi winces. 

He doesn’t chance a glance at KID until the chrome doors slide completely shut, and even then, gaze jumping from the ceiling to somewhere on his left— _not_ his right, where KID fell dead silent after the sheepish laugh he’d given Momo. Shinichi had expected the thief to be all over him the second the doors closed, talking himself out of the corner he’d been backed into with threats or blackmail or _something_. He hadn’t expected the silence. He doesn’t _know_ what the silence means—an invitation to break the ice, perhaps, a tensed wait for his reaction, maybe KID’s having a genuine _holy shit_ moment. All of the above, most likely.

Shinichi has no intention of weaponizing the new information, but he doesn’t know how to express that in a way that would convey exactly what he wants to say. 

He looks over at KID before he can overthink it. 

What comes out, with a quirked eyebrow, is, “KID-sama?” 

“Yes, my son?” KID replies without missing a beat, lifting his head from where he’d been looking down. 

Shinichi sputters, red filling his cheeks. “I wasn’t calling— _you’re_ the one who referred to yourself as—nevermind,” he scowls when KID confirms that he’s just fucking with him with a smirk. “Forget it.” 

He laughs. “Are you pouting? People think I’m a Kaitou KID fan. It’s a good cover, since I’m always defending myself against them haters,” he explains, throwing up a reverse peace sign. 

Shinichi hums. He doesn’t _want_ to think about and extrapolate from the conversation with Momo, but making deductions is an automatic process at this point and his brain runs them faster than he can process. “So it’s not an occasional thing, then. You hang around the Inspector quite often. Keep your enemies closer, I guess.” 

KID snorts. “I got enemies, it’s not these guys. I’m fond of them.”  

“And they, of you, apparently,” Shinichi points out, soft disbelief in his voice. 

“What, having trouble picturing a phantom like me living a normal life?”

“Not really,” Shinichi says, and means it: KID has felt nothing but real, tonight.

Not just tonight, actually, now that Shinichi thinks about it. Even with the lack of a name, he’s never had a problem picturing KID doing something as ordinary as laughing himself to tears or burning his tongue with hot noodles or being scolded by an adult for staying out late on a school night. Outside of his performances—where he feels surreal to the point of _intangible_ —KID’s this figure of wit and talent and dimension, whether he’s playing with a goat in Sakushima or getting kicked in the face by Sera or complaining to him through the phone about Bourbon.

KID doesn’t get it. “Well,” he shrugs, the picture of nonchalance. “I guess that won't be too difficult to imagine, since you know my name now and all.”

_ding_

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shinichi replies and then walks out.

He keeps walking even when KID doesn’t immediately follow, a smirk stretching the corner of his lips at the sound of shuffling feet behind him. 

Night air and autumnal wind whistle through his hair as he spills out the building and onto the sidewalk. The car is parked a street away; that's an eight minute walk and Shinichi wonders if it's going to be a quiet one. 

That’s, obviously, when KID decides to stop hovering behind. "I think I really like you, Detective,” he says blithely, falling back into steps with him. “You keep surprising me."

Ha. “Coming from you.”

KID beams triumphantly, hands crossed behind his head. “I bet you don’t regret passing up on that overrated friend thief of yours.”

“Actually, Lupin does live up to his reputation,” Shinichi replies, biting back a smile. KID’s jealous reaction earlier had been funny. “He’s kind of incredible.” 

Instead of an indignant scoff, he gets a huffed, “ _Please._ Come to my heists, I’ll show you incredible.” 

Shinichi snorts, amused.

“For real, though,” KID adds, voice toned down to something more serious.  Shinichi shoots him a curious side glance and does a double-take when he sees the thief looking at him with excitement in his eyes, head tilted back onto his hands. “You should come. More often. I meant what I said, about how good you are. That little display of skill back at the museum—did you hear what Momo said? Four minutes, that was all you.”

Shinichi brushes the compliment off like lint on black clothing, with frustrated annoyance. “It wasn’t fair play.”

“But it will be next time, right?” KID chirps, and he really shouldn’t be going around forgiving people that caused him harm so easily. When Shinichi tells him just that, he shrugs it off. “I’ve forgiven worse. Besides, what you did—you used a prop, right? That’s not so different from my sleeping gas.” 

Shinichi ponders that as he leaves KID’s side to round the car.

It’s still not okay, and he’s still going to have _words_ with the Professor, but, while it doesn’t exactly quash the shitty feeling in his chest, it subdues it, just a little.

“Hey,” he calls out, and KID peers at him over the car roof. “I might take you up on your offer, come to your...” he begins, figures he’s not being clear at all, and adds, “As, er, me.” A fair showdown with KID in his original body, while thrilling to consider, is not worth the risk of building up resistance to the antidote—he’d started with twenty-four hours the first intake, he’s down to _five_ —but he has a bottle full of APTX samples in his pocket and the kind of anticipation-filled hope that comes hand-in-hand with the sight of blinding light at the end of a tunnel. For the first time in a year, he’s feeling confident enough to make a promise. “Soon.” 

A Cheshire grin stretches KID’s lips. “I’ll keep an eye out for you, then.” He points down at the passenger door. “Lemme in.”

Shinichi fumbles in his pockets for the keys. “Stop pulling the handle for a sec.” 

“Lemme innnnnn!” 

“You’re a child,” he rolls his eyes, unlocking the car. 

He’s fully expecting a smug comeback, something along the lines of _bit ironic dontcha think mmMMh_ or _no, tantei-kun, that’s you_ but KID just flips him off over the roof as he gets in the car.

Shinichi follows suit. He doesn’t immediately turn the engine on, easing back into his seat instead with a sigh. “Am I dropping you off?”

“Sure, and then I’ll just give you my social security number, why not?”

“Well, what do you wanna do?” Shinichi asks, glancing down at his phone. A little before 3AM. “The last train left ages ago.” 

There’s an absent-minded hum to his right, and he looks up just in time to see KID fiddling with something Shinichi had last seen on the floor of a bathroom stall.

“You took that with you?” he scowls, half at the thief, half at himself for not making that connection sooner, when the task force agent had complained about it. “I thought I said—”  

“I don’t care what you said,” KID snorts. “Besides, it’s fitting.” He brings the bright sapphire up to eye-level between them. It’s a small thing, fifty million yen that fit between his thumb and middle finger. “You know what these meant, in the Middle Ages?”

He doesn’t have to fish far in the obscure trivia part of his brain to reply. “Vatican elite wore them on their rings, as they believed sapphires symbolized—”

“Purity of purpose.” 

Shinichi blinks up into indigo eyes watching him intently. “Fitting,” he agrees. 

 _For the both of them_? is left unasked. 

“Right?” KID smiles. “Here, the moon is on your side. Check it for me.” 

Their fingers brush, linger for a second, before Shinichi holds the jewel up the same way he’d seen KID do, on multiple occasions. “What am I looking for?” 

He starts to understand why: the stone is way more impressive under natural moonlight than electrical washroom lighting. It's stunning, with its intricate details enhanced like this. Shinichi takes in the perfect symmetry in the way it's been carefully cut, the different hues of sparkling blues dancing around the central, flaring glow of blood red. It's a pretty surprise.

“A light trick, you think?” He squints. “Or, wait. A smaller gem inside?” 

“What?” 

KID’s gaze snaps to the gem. 

Shinichi shrugs, handing it back to the thief. “Either way—impressive, considering it dates back to the feudal era. She must’ve been a favorite, I gue–woah, _hey_ ," he starts when he suddenly finds himself with KID half over his lap. 

His arm instinctively shoots up to curl around KID's chest, stopping him from toppling face-first into the driver's window.

The slivers of moonlight streaming into the car turn scarlet again, but Shinichi’s more focused on the close view he’s getting of KID’s face beneath the hoodie and the cap and the bangs, his haunted look as he holds the gem up to the moon and red light flashes over his features. “Holy shit,” KID murmurs, the hand that’s digging into Shinichi’s right thigh clenching around the denim. “Holy shit.”

Oh.

“Seems like we both got to cross something off our to-do list, tonight,” Shinichi smiles, the corner of his eyes crinkling.

KID huffs out a short laugh, bafflement and elation mixed in one breath, and then a second. It’s hard _not_ to be happy for the stupid thief, when he turns to look at him like that. 

"Kudou," he says, a bit shakily, "what the fuck." 

Right before he lunges for him and that's all it takes for them to be kissing.

Shinichi stills, eyes open, but not wide. 

It takes only a couple seconds for him to decide, _what the hell_ , and melt into the kiss, eyelids fluttering shut. KID feels that moment, too, shifts to fully straddle his lap. Shinichi registers the faint _thud_ of the stone falling onto carpeted floor, the way his neck tucks back into the crook of KID's elbow when he tilts his head, the fingers through his hair, not raking but just kind of there.

This isn’t how he pictured his first kiss. 

He’d imagined it proper, soft and slow; he’d imagined it spontaneous in a hotel corridor wearing matching tracksuits, meticulously planned outside a Kyoto temple standing in a pool of dead orange leaves and their friends teasing them after, a speck on the lips on the train back between two hushed sentences as his fingers run through long, silky hair and a hand calloused from breaking boards cradles his cheek; he’d been sure it would be timid and awkward as Ran and him both try to figure it out.

But the real thing is nothing like that. The real thing is neither soft nor clumsy—except, maybe, on Shinichi’s part, but it doesn’t even seem to matter. “Move your mouth,” KID instructs without pulling away, voice a breathless sough between two kisses. Fingers ghost over his jawline, tilt his chin up. “Here.”

He slows down and Shinichi mirrors his movement, tentatively at first, with a frown of concentration. _Hands_ he remembers when he starts getting the hang of it, they’re hovering. 

He settles an arm around KID’s waist, right hand around the back of a white-clad thigh. They're pressed together so tightly, but KID doesn't ever seem satisfied, moving against him with the same rhythm his lips capture Shinichi’s, again and again and again. 

Shinichi doesn’t know how, didn’t know he had it in him, but he manages the same fervor, matches the hunger and then some more. He dredges up a year worth of bottled up frustration and repressed anger and puts it all into kissing Kaitou KID back.

Why not? It’s not like he’ll get the other one.

The grip around him tightens and KID sighs a breathless _fuck_ against his mouth that turns into a moan and a tongue pressing to the seam of his lips, working them open, slow. And Shinichi's heart, he hadn’t noticed, it's beating a fucking _bruise_ into his ribcage— 

_badum_

“...Kudou?” KID whispers, having felt him freeze into the kiss. 

He draws back a little, their lips coming apart with a loud _pop_ that the silence swallows. 

Shinichi stares back with wide eyes and lips parted open, immobile as he tries to determine if he’d only imagined the—  

“Kudou!” KID startles when he doubles over at the second, painfully familiar pang and takes a nosedive straight into the thief’s shoulder. “Shit, these are withdrawal symptoms, right?”

“I’m not a fucking addict,” Shinichi hisses, words muffled by sweatshirt fleece. “I’m transforming back.”

“Into– _what_?” KID asks, genuine distress in his voice.

Hands manhandle him into a sitting position and Shinichi pants back into the car seat. The third pulsation clutches a tight fist around his throat and stomps on his chest, knocking the air out of him even as he registers, faintly, the weight on his lap vanishing. KID crawling over the gear shift and into the passenger seat. His pockets getting rummaged through. 

Vivid panic steals a heartbeat and he reaches out to grip KID’s wrist before he could draw it back. “Don’t–tha’s mine–”

“Is this it?” The pill bottle gets dangled in front of his face. “Is this what you need? Kudou, hey, stay with me. Do you need me to–” 

“Switch seats with me,” Shinichi cuts off. He closes his eyes, just for a second, the sticky feeling of sweat-drenched bangs against his forehead enough to cause a bout of dizziness that clears as soon as it comes, leaving him hyper aware of his escalating fever. He tilts his head back against the seat with a shaky sigh, rolls it around to look at KID through half-lidded eyes. “Come on, move.” 

“Right, ok. Hold on.” 

The sound of a car door that clicks open and slams shut, then he’s alone, nails digging into the steering wheel leather. 

It hurts all over, but the sting in his eyes still manages to stand out. Shinichi digs his face in his forearm and thinks, _it’ll pass_ , and then all thoughts blend into a mix of heat and pain and he _burns_ — 

He doesn’t scream when it happens; he sobs. A small, ugly sound that tears into his throat and drowns in the folds of his sleeve. 

It hurts all over. 

  
  


 

 

 

 

The driver’s door clicks open, but he’s too busy frowning down at his oversized clothes with newly dried eyes to bother paying any attention to KID as he slips into the empty seat.

It isn’t until the silence wells up into _deafening_ , and why hasn’t that idiot cracked one of his jokes already? that he looks up and dives into stunned indigo.

KID is staring at him.

Conan scowls back as he finishes rolling his sleeves up. “What?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (long note incoming) there u go, that was chapter 2, twice the size of the first chapter because, in the words of my dear friend when i expressed concerns about this fact, "if people cared abt length consistency they wouldn't read fanfic. toss the chap & dip." 
> 
> a couples things i want to talk about: 
> 
> 1\. [xCaraLena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xCaraLena/pseuds/xCaraLena), so talented and so painfully canadian, drew some kickass art for the scene in the car last chapter. It's so deep in my insta DMs and it's 2am but i will link it & her as soon as i find it. i love u cara. this chapter for u. EDIT: [dorito](https://xcaralena.tumblr.com/post/616585069286522880/check-and-mate-chapter-1-helloimtrash-%E5%90%8D%E6%8E%A2%E5%81%B5%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8A%E3%83%B3)
> 
> 2\. no idea when chapter 3 is going to be up, as i am OVER making promises that i can't keep. but i do have more time to write now, since my uni is down and we switched to online classes. the upcoming six weeks are looking to be just me in my room on my laptop. so yeah, no idea when i'll update next, but thank you for sticking with me through my disgusting update schedules. i hope you liked this chapter! don't hesitate if you have questions or want me to clarify some stuff, i definitely felt like i wasn't being clear in some parts.
> 
> 3\. huge sorry to medieval gemstone symbolism experts. i read sapphires symbolized purity of purpose and deed on this one shady blog once and it fit the fic so i tried cross-referencing it with a more reliable source but i couldn't find anything so either my researching skills are rusty (i did only try for like, ten minutes, seeing as i'm strictly against effort as a concept) or the blogger pulled it out of their ass, then? repeat after me guys, if it ain't creative writing, a bibliography section is NOT OPTIONAL, people. anyhow, it fits the detco slash fanfiction, so. let's pretend it do. 
> 
> 4\. (this one is for case closed runner gamers) good morning to everyone except the person who pulled in 500 MILLION points in this month's ranking event, what the fuck. how is that even a thing. also, my ID is 414756809006, add me!!! i need friends that i can exlusively communicate with thru sending each other daily staminas. that's my love langage.
> 
> 5\. back on track, the response to chapter 1 was amazingggg, you guys are amazingggg, i was so glad you liked it so much, but also nervous because chapter 2 had to pull through, which resulted in me deleting draft after draft n then getting frustrated w/ myself and then going into a six months long hiatus. but that was all worth it because i wrote this whole chapter in the past couple weeks on a whim and i enjoyed it so hard. that said, i'm still nervous about tossing it here. i feel like i've read it over so many times all words have lost meaning. regardless, i hope u liked it.
> 
> ok i'm done oversharing bye for now


	3. after credits roll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have so many case closed runner staminas. i'm eating, breathing and shitting staminas. guys stop sending me staminas (don't stop)
> 
> psa: this chapter is just... bad imagery. like full of it. proceed with caution.

Picture this.

A detective and a thief get into a car.

One sheds off ten years like a snake its skin,

the other has a gemstone that bleeds immortality.

What would the logical inference be?

“I was poisoned,” Conan deadpans, holding up the pill bottle between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s called apoptoxin-4869. I get the chemistry behind it, but don’t ask me to explain it. Basically, it eats at your cells until you’re dead, and then it keeps going until there’s nothing left of you. I got lucky.” A scoff, bitter, as he tugs on the lapel of his blazer. Child-sized—he’d kept an outfit in the trunk. “It turned me into a kid instead.”

… so, not Pandora’s work. Kaito exhales a relieved breath, fists unclenching around the steering wheel. He’d taken one look at pint-sized Kudou and his mind had immediately jumped to the gemstone under the seat. Occam’s razor: it cries freaking tears that grant endless life. The myth doesn’t say anything about the form in which it did so—it could as well reverse the ageing process, set the clock back.

Except, it’s not Pandora and this isn’t Kaito’s fault. That has become fairly apparent when he’d opened his mouth to say something ( _I’m so sorry I’m going to fix this I promise_ ) but the turmoil he felt must’ve been visible on his face because Conan had cut him off with a weird look and a surprisingly calm, _“_ I thought you knew _.”_

The kid he’d found swimming in leopard print and black jeans on the passenger seat isn’t just seven-year old Kudou bearing a striking resemblance to his cousin Conan; it _was_ Conan.

Kudou Shinichi and Edogawa Conan are the _same_ person.

“KID, you’re driving ten miles per hour.”

Kaito is… processing.

Understanding washes onto him in waves of _oh, so that’s what that was about._ Cross-wired bits of conversations over the last two hours, the brilliant mind peeking through a gaze too sharp too mature for a seven-year old and the _concealment_ of it behind faux, childish innocence—

It all clicks into place with the last piece of the puzzle. Kaito had not realized it was missing.

“I can walk faster than this.”

Kaito exhales and tears his eyes from the empty Beika side streets he’d been navigating purely on auto pilot and muscle memory and shoots Conan a look. “As crazy as this is–”

“The house is right there,” Conan talks over him, pointing ahead, “ _please,_ speed up, please, this pace is making me want to tear my _face_ out and eat it. I’m not joking.”

Pettily, Kaito slows down.

Eight minutes and some roughhousing later, the car pulls up in front of Agasa Hiroshi’s, and Kaito tries again, “As crazy as this is–”

“You really didn’t know?”

“Not in the slightest, but it,” he tilts his head with a grimace, but has to concede, “it makes more sense than it doesn’t.”

“It doesn’t make any sense at all,” Conan insists, crossing his arms. “I thought you _knew_. How can you not know? You’ve always–treated me like an equal. Talked to me like one. We’re _rivals._ I can’t fathom how you would just… go along with–you _never_ questioned?” he asks, high-pitched baffled. “How a seven-year old would manage to go toe-to-toe with you? Not once?”

“I thought you were just really smart,” Kaito admits in a small voice.

Silence fills the car, loud, engulfing, popped by–

A chuckle.

It’s like a sprung leak: a short chuckle that Conan stifles with pursed lips, blinking up at the ceiling. Face scrunched up for two seconds—and then he’s bursting into laughter. Head tilted back, hand over his face, shoulders shaking, gasps for breath between _you didn’t know_ and _whhhhh_ and _oh my god._

Kaito crosses his arms over the wheel and waits it over, sulking. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s _so_ funny,” Conan replies, a tremor in his voice. “I thought– I _assumed_ because you–but you just–”

“It’s easier to fish for information if the other party thinks you already have it, okay!” Kaito defends. “Not my fault you talk in stupid half-replies and nonstop ellipses. We need to work on your speech patterns, we really do. They’re insufferable.”

Then, because it’s still there, in the air, hanging, and it only needs a _slight_ tug, he adds,

“I could teach you what I learned in debate club.”

Conan laughs.

There it is. Cheek mashed against his forearm, Kaito watches him with a smile that’s only half disbelief.

He’s still trying to pin down how he’s feeling about this—the images of tantei-kun and meitantei are still separate in his mind, frozen in juxtaposition because it feels like apprehensively staring at a picture on a word-processing program that he _knows_ if moved an inch would shift the entire thing. It’s hard to merge the two together without considering the _implications_.

The thing is, if it shifts…

“This is me,” Conan says with leftover brightness, nodding sideways at the window.

“Yep,” Kaito says, absentmindedly.  

“You can take my car to get home, by the way, I don't mind.”

Just to see what happens, Kaito looks him in the eye and says, “I don’t have my driver’s license.”

Conan blinks back with a sheepish look. “Me neither.”

“ _Detective_.”

“I’m seventeen!”

Kaito grins, surprisingly helpless. He wants to laugh. Instead, he plucks the _Big Osaka_ cap off the floor where it had fallen during the (!) and shoves it over Conan’s locks. “Here, you can have this back. Even little criminals need their disguises.”

“ _Barou_.” Conan’s hand comes up to lift the tip off his eyes, and he shoots him a complicit look from underneath it. “Thanks for. You know. Going along with it.”

Kaito brushes it off. “We have a system.”

“Still, thanks.”

“It’s not like–“

“ _KID_ ,” Conan stresses, and waits until Kaito meets his gaze to repeat, “thank you.”  

“Tch.” He looks away. “You’re welcome.”

Seemingly satisfied, Conan undoes his seatbelt, leans over to grab his glasses on the dashboard (oh okay) pushes the door open and, right as he’s about to hop off the car, pauses to glance at him over his shoulder. “Don’t go around spreading tales, by the way. For… all the people who do know,” a grimace, “this is still supposed to be a secret.”

 “Don’t worry, detective,” Kaito winks. “I don’t kiss & tell.”

“Life or death, KID,” Conan complains, slamming the door shut just in time to cut off his disgruntled _for god’s sake_ as he ambles away.

Kaito laughs and stays put until Hiroshi Agasa opens the door in full-set PJs and Conan walks past him and into the house, and then he straightens and steps on it.

Halfway home, sagely sitting at a red light, despite the million, significantly more important things clamoring around his mind for his attention, he catches himself thinking back to _this is not the time for technicalities_ and snorts.

Yeah, okay. It’s pretty fucking funny.

.

.

 _a thank-you,_ reads the email subject that pops up in his inbox the next day, elbowing down the now-stale tickets confirmation for _Sengoku Era: the Fool of Owari_. The timestamp shows 12:22pm, the sender, standing tall in proud kanjis, Kudou Shin’ichi. Number one.

 _and a sorry?_ reveals the rest of the message when he clicks on it, complete with an attached file. _erased.docx._

Kaito rubs sleep off his eyes, the tug of intrigue pulling him back into the empty classroom he’d ducked into for lunch break. He'd just started dozing off against his hand in front of the perpetually-blank Word document, lulled by the steady drum of heavy rain against double-paned glass and the ticking clock above the blackboard— _tick, tick,_ five, ten, twenty slime minutes wasted when he’s supposed to be writing this _damn_ paper due in five and a half—

The file takes over his screen and Kaito blinks, head raising from his palm in surprise as he comes face-to-face with—

Erased:

  _Damnatio Memoriae_ , or How to Die Twice

—nine pages inked black in times new roman, police 12. 

Kaito stares, a bit dumbfounded as he scrolls down the touchpad to skim over paragraphs, catching flashes of

_purposeful forgetfulness out of shame, out of remorse_

_dates back to the amarna era, roughly six centuries before the tale of romulus, common misconception as to think roman senators—_

_a fate worse than death_

_term of the institution coined neither in pharaonic egypt nor ancient rome but in a 17th century german dissertation_

_erase the name, erase the person_

_modern time applications include former soviet union under and following stalin_

_dead people vanishing from pictures_

_within the chinese communist party statesman zhao ziyang had been condemned to—_

_murdered_

_from collective memory_

Something comes alive inside his chest (swift, warm, like he’d swallowed butterflies) when he gets to the bibliography section, a page-long list of neatly referenced sources, from chapters pulled out of books and encyclopedic entries to websites with domains like _.org_ and goddamn _.edu_ and wow, how _lucky_ is it that he’d stolen Kudou’s phone number last night when he wasn’t looking? He’d planned to wait, initially, had an innocent _btw just text when u need me next time instead of u know_ message lined up, and it hasn’t even been a full twelve hours since they’d last seen each other.

But actually, he decides, fishing his phone out his back pocket, fuck the three days rule.

A grin pulls at his cheeks as he types. _how did you get my email address?_

He scrolls back up to page one with the intention to go through the paper again properly. 

(pauses when he sees that Kudou had left a blank space for him to fill his name in)

He’s tilting his head at a bit near the end, when the reply pings. _how did you get my number?_

Kaito snickers, thumbs airily drifting over tactile keys. _SO going to get those originality bonus points. condemnation of memory?_

_not technically negationist in that illegitimacy lacks in most cases, but it’s historical record distortion. how good are you at arguing with teachers?_

_are you forgetting who you’re talking to, detective?_

_ha. have fun playing hooky next semes. it’s on me._

The butterflies are alive and fluttering.

.

.

On Thursday evenings, the Blue Parrot’s usually buzzing with activity, from romantic dates around billiard tables to post-work drinks shared between loud white-collars. Tonight, though, jazz plays softly from the speakers to entertain empty tables and vacant bar stools. The lack of business might have something to do with the semi-popular J-Pop band performing two streets down and also the fact that Kaito had forgotten to flip the _closed_ sign back to _open._

He’ll probably remember around 11PM, when Jii comes back to let him off bar duty.

Kaito hasn’t slept for over thirty-two hours. His thoughts and leg keep bouncing, despite the fact that he’d spent the first hour of his shift in virtually the same position: on a stool, forearms folded over the counter, staring at Pandora with blank eyes and a blanker mind.

There’s something his dad used to say, about introspection and the importance of regularly engaging in it: _feelings can only be controlled as far as their expression._ He’d made sure Kaito understood what that meant, exactly, had repeated it again and again, often around a poker table with Kaito on his knee and a Royal Flush in his hand.

And it’s testimony to how important his father deems that piece of wisdom to be that he touches on the subject again postmortem, in one of the audio tapes in the KID room. It’s Kaito’s favorite tape, the only one he felt was talking to him, not Kaitou KID.  

 _maintaining a flawless poker face is important, Kaito,_ his dad says in gentle, slow syllables, _and acknowledging what’s behind the illusion is part of that. a shaky grasp on what’s going on in that big heart of yours can only lead to cracks and leaks and we don’t want that, do we now? it’s paramount that you understand this, kid. put a lid on it, but don’t forget to peer inside._

At the moment, Kaito’s apprehensive at doing so.

The only thoughts he’s had today (has allowed himself to have) regarding his now-fulfilled life goal had been _that Nobunaga bastard_ and _when’s the next volley comet?_ He hadn’t even clued Jii in yet, had thought about ways to kill the gem without trying any of them.

He’s… waiting for something. He doesn’t really know what, but in light of the _underwhelming-ness_ of it all, waiting seems like the right thing to do.

Ah, well! It’s fine! He has other things to think about. Lots of things happened last night. Kudou Shinichi happened last night.

Kaito is nothing but adaptable. He’s had time to make peace with the double impossible that’s jumped to light: both the adult mind in the child’s body _and_ the fact that Kaito hadn’t put two and two together on his own. Seriously, he could have. Although, to his defense, even with all the evidence in the world, who in their right mind would come to _that_ conclusion?

Anyway, he’s made peace with it: Edogawa Conan and Kudou Shinichi are the same person. Wow, what a shock, who’s seen that coming, etc. etc. The _important_ thing is—to recycle a bad metaphor—the _juxtaposition_.

Kaito doesn’t know a lot about Kudou, for all he’s attracted to the guy. He’s goal-oriented, lenient on the law, good at kissing. No poker face whatsoever, cute mannerisms, good wit, effortless conversation. There’s chemistry crackling between them, new and exciting and _attractive_.

But, if he has to cross last night with the sense of friendship and deep respect and genuine affection he’s got for Edogawa Conan—

Well.

Love is a plague, and he has fallen ill.

“You could do a haiku with that,” Aoko pipes up around her cocktail straw. “If you add a third phrase.”

She’d showed up in a yellow denim jacket and the energy to match it an hour into the shift he agreed to cover for Yuzuki ( _jii-chan I don’t even work here–ugh, fine, stop looking at me like that_ ) after he’d texted her to pull up and keep him company.

“Really?” Kaito frowns, thinking back on the words he’d apparently said out loud. That doesn’t sound right. He tries to count on his fingers, quickly gives up. “You need more than a five-seven-five format for it to qualify as a haiku, you know.”

“Don’t mansplain haikus to Aoko! We both took the same lit class.”

“One of us passed and it ain’t you, though.”

“I mean,” she starts to say, and the way her face scrunches up into an amused expression—Kaito knows exactly where she’s going with this. “Technically, I did pass that class.”

They share a look, break into chuckles.

“That teacher never noticed, we should’ve bumped it up all the way to an A+.”

“Yeah, not suspicious at all—oh, that girl who never turned anything in ranked top three of her class, yes this makes complete sense to me, the teacher who barely knows who she is.”

Aoko wheezes, leaning into his shoulder. “I still can’t believe we got away with it.” Her cheeks are flushed and her speech just a tad slurred. Kaito idly wonders if he should cut her off.

“Anyway, anyway,” she shakes her head, slaps her cheeks. “What were you saying ‘bout love? I wrote my history paper about the black plague.”

Eh, she’s fine.

He bends over the counter to retrieve the half-empty bottle stored underneath, right next to the stolen fifty-million worth private property (he’d checked, and the museum had borrowed it from Suzuki Group for the exhibition, so it’s like, fine) before dropping back down on his stool and generously filling both their glasses.

“Here’s the thing,” he says with all the gravitas he can manage. ‘Tis a grave situation.

Aoko smiles, fingers picking at her lower lip. “Tell me the thing.”

“You know why they call it falling in love? Because,” he declares, and he’s pointing _fingers_ , “the resulting concussion lowers your IQ.”

She blinks. “Who’s Kaito in love with?”

“I don’t know if it’s _love_ -love,” Kaito grumbles into his drink, because he’s twelve year old, apparently. He sets his glass down, tries again, “I don’t know how to _know_ -know, you know?”

“Well,” Aoko hums, and tilts her head in thought. It’s adorable. “Concussions make you dizzy. Do you feel dizzy?”

Kaito falls silent. Lets himself remember… being in Kudou’s arms, on Kudou’s lap, high on relief, giddiness, turned on by the static crackling between them.

(fever feeling of lips moving hungrily against his of grinding against strong football thighs)

Lets himself remember before that, when he’d missed Pandora’s first glow because he’d been fascinated by how pretty Shinichi had been, bathed in moonlight and checking a gem for him.

Kaito bends the deck he’s one-handedly shuffling a little too-tight and cards shower over him in a fluttering flurry.

If he felt dizzy?

“I’m drunk," he realizes, with a slow blink that makes Aoko laugh.

He plucks the Ace of Heart off his hair. Stares at it, contemplative.

It doesn’t mean anything, does it? Not like he’s inviting Kudou for a sleepover anytime soon. It’s one thing to like a detective—whole other to link hands and tug him around a house tour. How would that even go? “ _And this is my bedroom_ ,” he’ll cheerfully say to the modern-day Holmes, savior of the police, “ _and this is where I plot all my crimes_ –”

No, no. He has to be sensible about this.

But.

But.

But.

The elevator. Kaito froze up, ice down his back. He’d had everything under control, up to that point, from subtly steering Kudou into the corridors’ blind camera angles—he hadn’t even noticed, the noob—to cleaning up the filing room’s CCTV footage but Momo _had not been in the plan_. There was no way he could’ve accounted for Momo. Momo was unexpected. Momo was… Momo was…

saying his _name_. He’d heard it; Kudou had heard it. And Kaito couldn’t even pretend it’s one of his made-up covers, because only a little digging would be enough to dredge up the links tying Kaitou KID to a very much real Kuroba Kaito, and if there’s one thing detectives always carried, it was a fucking shovel.

But Kudou—he _hadn’t_ pounced on it. He didn’t even _consider_ using it as… as leverage, or something. He’d just… he’d just–

Looked so _kind_ , so genuinely happy when Kaito was losing his shit at a jewel.

Dammit.

With a flip of his wrist, the card between his fingers vanishes.

“It’s not love,” he says, turning to shoot Aoko a sheepish smile, “but it could be.”

She doesn’t smile back. She’s sitting sideways on her stool, body angled towards him, and she’s studying him with an uncharacteristically intense look. “Kaito…”

“Y-Yes?”

“I’m really happy for you.”

It feels real, when she says that. Genuine in a way conversation between them rarely is—or, rather, in a way it hasn’t been for a while. It makes Kaito shrink back, makes him pick up his drink and bury his embarrassment in it. “Whatever, ‘s not like anything’s happened yet.”

“Eh, Kaito always gets what he wants!” she cheers, looping an arm around his neck to tug him down in a clumsy headlock, and his _oi!_ gets drowned out by a happy, “ _Kanpai_!”

She smells like Animal Crossing. Despite his uncomfortable, hunched over position and the metal-cold denim jacket button painfully digging into his cheek, Kaito snickers. “You’re going to be sick tomorrow if you don’t cut it out, dude.”

“God,” she groans. “No way. I still haven’t recovered from last night.”

“Wait, what?” He wiggles out of her grip, re-emerges with crazy hair and a frown. “What’d you mean? What happened last night?”

“Remember that place we went to, yesterday? The peri-peri chicken curry? We’re _never_ going back.”

She suddenly falls silent and Kaito tilts his head forward in expectation, and then again with raised eyebrows when she only blinks. “… Elaborate? Maybe?”

“Oh, well, Aoko got really sick, last night. Something must’ve been in the food. It was-it was not good. It was horrible.”

Kaito slowly nods in realization. “Huh.”

_Huh._

“Kaito threw up, too?”

“I… vaguely recall something like that, yeah.”

“You know what,” she decides, picking up her phone, “they can’t get away with it. I’m gonna bully them.”

It takes four attempts for her to get the lock pattern right. Kaito watches her thumb slide on the screen for a silent three minutes, mind deadly blank to the point of almost-hypnosis, and then Aoko, ever-oblivious to normal speaking volumes, yells, “Hey!” and switches apps before Tabelog even loads. “This person you like! I can find their Instagram.”

“You don’t know anything about them,” Kaito points out.

“I can find it.”

Kaito chuckles and whatever, lets her tap away. He pats his pockets for his own phone and finds it facedown on the bar counter. Picks it up and swipes out of _10 easy cocktail recipes for beginners_ to open his messaging app.

Kudou (!) sits second in the chats list.

_yo, question._

_kudouuuuuuu_

_i'm here, i'm here._

_i have. question_

_shoot._

_u said you didn't know ur stupid prank pill's effects, right?_

_sorry._

_no but like, what did you think it would do?_

_i...honestly don't know. the professor wanted to keep it a surprise. i assumed it would be something stupid, like static shocks off everything you touch. something that curbs your motor skills for a short amount of time._

_it doesn't work._

_i know, i talked to prof & he's very flummoxed. apparently inducing sickness was not the intended effect._

_no i mean like, it doesn't do anything._

_what?_

_yea. i just found. out the friend I ate w/ yesterday w_

_as also; down last night. twas bad chicken._

_really?_

_really. stop feeling guilty now? it’s not attractive._

Conan smiles around his toothbrush. That’s such a stupid thing to say. He shuts the screen off and spits into the sink before resuming brushing with renewed gusto. Hm. He’ll probably have to apologize to the Professor for the—rinse, rinse—the angry exclamation points he’d sent last night, while waiting for KID in the parking lot.

He walks out the bathroom lighter than when he came in.

It’s not late yet, exactly. The old man’s in front of the TV, a Kirin beer in his hand, and Ran is standing in the kitchen, doing dishes and humming under her breath.

Ran.

She doesn’t notice him lurking in the doorway, doesn’t notice him fighting the week-old internal battle that peeks out whenever he finds himself in her presence.

He can’t tell if he wins or loses this round when he steps next to her and asks, “Can I help?”

Can only tell that she starts but keeps a solid grip on the glass in her hand. Can tell she’s subject to her own internal fight in the way she bites her lower lip for a short second when she glances at him and he can tell she loses that fight when she says, “Dry-duty,” and hands him a dishtowel.

(he can see everything! but it still feels like he’s not doing anything right!)

Like this, with him standing on a stool, they’re shoulder-to-shoulder. They’ve done this, before. The scene is familiar, in all the ways that ache—the clinking of the dishes, Okino Yoko in the background, lulling the silence that used to be comfortable but is now just fraught with the unsaid.

“You didn’t come home last night.”

It’s Conan’s turn to start. “Oh, I was, ehm.”

“At the Professor?” she suggests with a glance.

Conan grimaces. “Eventually?”

Ah, what a disaster.

“Did you sleep?” she barrels on and doesn’t wait for an answer. It’s pretty obvious. “You should go to bed early, tonight. You looked really tired over dinner.”

“You too.”

He blurts it out without thinking, says it because it’s true and he’s noticed, but weirdly, something shifts.

The hard line of her shoulders slump and she exhales a long sigh. “I’ve been busy,” she admits, before shooting him a familiar, shy glance. “You’re going to laugh.”

Conan is really bad at video games, but it feels like he pressed the right dialogue option.

“I’m not,” he promises, curious.

“I…” She ducks her head in defeat. “I somehow found myself in charge of the preparations for the graduation ceremony.”

Conan looks at her.

“The head of the volunteer committee transferred away!” she adds, defensive, “four months before graduation! They needed an urgent replacement!”

Conan… pointedly does not laugh, but he can’t do anything about the amusement on his face.

She splashes him with droplets of soap-water. “You said you weren’t going to laugh!”

“I’m not laughing,” he laughs, wiping his nose with a sleeve. “You’re too nice, you know that? This is because you’re too nice.” It’s easy to imagine how she got roped into this despite her resolution a couple of months back he _distinctly_ remembers, the one they’re both thinking about now.

 _That’s it, I’m not taking on any more extracurriculars_ , Ran had said with fierce determination.

 _The school can choke_ , Sonoko agreed.

“You don’t get it,” she says, with a pout and exasperation. “I’m not surprised at all.”

“Maybe,” he concedes. He doesn’t. It had not been her responsibility before she decided to involve herself and she _knew_ she had a full plate already, with karate class and finals. Conan tilts his head with an unhappy twist of the lips. “You should get someone to split the work with. It’s a lot.”

Ran shakes her head, chin high. “I can do it all!”

“You’re an idiot,” Conan replies easily.

Halt.

On both ends.

They look at each other.

Lock eyes.

And then–

And then Conan’s grip on the bowl he’s drying off slips and the moment breaks with a crash of ceramic against tiles that makes them both look down with a jolt.

“Crap, sorry,” Conan lets out, hopping off the stool and onto the ground.  

He starts gathering the large chunks, the powder from the smaller ones lodging under his nails. With a blink, he recognizes the white-on-yellow polka dots pattern.

It’s Ran’s rice bowl.

“I broke your,” he cuts himself off when he feels Ran crouching in front of him. “Sorry, I’ll just–I’ll fix it.”

There’s a pause, where he tries to piece two shards back—they fit, but he needs glue—and then there’s a hand on both of his and he stops and looks up.

She’s looking at him with a half-smile, familiar in the sadness it carries. They’re close, broken ceramic between them. She leans down, rests her forehead on his hair, murmurs–

“I don’t think we can fix it, Shinichi.”

It’s the most intimate they’ve been since Kyoto.

“ _Sshh_ ,” he says in the same low tone, “don’t say that,” head shifting slightly to the side as he looks away. “That name.”

There had been an arrangement.

There’s this thing he’d noticed himself doing at times, the first couple of months after that night in Tropical Land. In preparation for every possibility, or perhaps in some kind of cathartic indulgence in worst-cases, he’d ran various mental scenarios in which she would corner him and uncover his secret.

All of them featured anger as the most prominent emotion—terrifying kicks, even if he knew she wouldn’t. Not really.

Shinichi would have preferred the anger.

As it is, one week ago, in her dad’s office, he’d done every possible bad move in the book, and she hadn’t shown a _drop_ of it. Even as the year and a half worth of lies unraveled between them, even when he’d brushed off her hurt (so tactlessly, he winces as he thinks about it) to insist on the danger they’re in, even when he’d shown himself only willing to give up the bare minimum—the life-threatening part, the _I’m dead and I need to stay dead_ part.

There had been an arrangement. Stay with the Mouris to avoid outward suspicion; stay away from me until I deal with this.

Conan thought he’d been the one who’d ended the conversation with those words; he’s not so sure anymore.

Two things he’s sure of: Ran knew before she _knew_ , and there’s nothing Shinichi can do to fix the stupid bowl.

It ends up in the trash. Ran scoops the mess he made with a broom and tips it into the garbage can. She looks at him with sadness in her eyes like she did a week back when she asked _why did you have to lie to me?_ _me?_ except this time she says, “I’m really trying, you know?” like they hadn’t both felt it the moment he’d decided to drop his childish smile.

The fracture.

It’s late now. Mouri’s out for the night, stalking a middle-aged, married-for-now man, Ran’s in her room, and he’s slipping under cold covers when Shinichi’s phone buzzes.

Conan turns his head to look at it, before he picks it up. It falls on his face twice in a row and when he turns it on, the brightness blinds him in a flash of white.

He squints at the screen. _sorry for, u kno, givign u shit for smth u weren’t actually respnosnibible for._

Followed by, a second later, _or whatever._

 _or whatever?_ he texts back without really thinking about it.

 _yeah,_ is all KID says.

Conan swipes out the conversation and finds himself staring at the home screen.

He’s exhausted but he doesn’t really want to go to sleep yet—doesn’t think he can even if he tries, and he won’t, because that entails being alone with his thoughts for the amount of time it’ll take him to slip into blessed unconsciousness, which can only lead to spiraling.

His thumb pauses over the EPUB reader app icon when he catches himself thinking back to _let’s get out of here_ and a hand tugging him up.

Before he knows it, he’s pulling up KID’s contact profile (unsaved number) and holding the phone to his ear.

Four rings, one click—then KID’s here, again. “Detective!” he greets. Joking tone; voice light, easy. “Anything I say can’t be used against me in court, alright?”

A breeze of air wooshes through the room. Had he left the window open?

“You’re… intoxicated,” he realizes, 100% unimpressed. Any idiot would. KID is slurring.

“I’m,” _thud,_ “ow, clear enough to not incriminate m’self so don’t try any shit.”

Conan frowns. “Are you alright?”

“I just got home and it’s really dark, Meitantei.”

“Why don’t you turn on the lights, then?” he suggests, patiently.

“The lights–“ A pause. “Yes, this helps. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

The line trails off into silence. KID doesn’t seem to mind, neither does Conan, so he takes a moment to just listen. Steady breathing, muffled footsteps, creaking floors.

It doesn’t look like KID’s expecting a reason for the phone call.

Conan turns on his side, latches onto the first topic that comes to mind. “Did you manage to turn in your paper on time?”

“Wha’?”

“Six PM was your deadline, right?” Conan asks, somewhat amused. A disoriented KID, how cute. Stumbling his way up the stairs, through his house—he just got there. Evening drinks. Why did he go out? It's Thursday.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s over. Thanks, by the way. Or, well, you’re welcome, I guess?”

“I would have sent it sooner, but I fell asleep,” he admits. It had been around five in the morning when he left the Professor’s to go next door, six when he decided to kill two birds and get some late lamented academic stimulation while helping KID out, eight when he fell asleep on his laptop and eleven when he woke up with a blanket on his shoulders and a couple of suggestions in the margin.

“I was actually worried that you might’ve already started working on it by the time I was done, but then I remembered who you were, so I still went ahead and sent it.”

“Haha, fuck you.”

Conan smiles. “What did you think of it?”

 “What’d I think of your essay?”

“It’s your essay,” he corrects, “but yes.”

“I liked it,” KID replies. A thud, fainter and more controlled this time, like the phone’s being put down on a surface. Friction of clothes being changed. Looks like he found his bedroom. “You know me–I love outside the box things. I like how you–the way you write, you know?”

“Hm?”

“Like, the tone. It kept switching between matter-of-fact at definitions and dates and examples, and something more… more personal, in all the input in-between. That bit at the end for example, when you went off on a tangent about the paradox of, like, remembering to forget.”

“I had to fill in those nine pages,” Conan simply says, slightly impressed that KID could _put_ two coherent thoughts together in his drunken state, let alone verbalize them. Why is he surprised, really. “You know how it is.”

“I loved it! It felt like a diary entry.”

Conan scoffs. “Please.”

“I’m serious! You chose this topic ‘cuz it’s relevant, didn’t you?”

“It’s just something I saw on a TV program.”

A beat. “…That hurt, tantei-kun.”

Conan falls silent. The excuse had slipped out on its own, and his defensiveness trickles away at the realization that, hm, he really doesn’t have any reason to lie.

“I really did see it on a history channel,” he admits. Damnation of memory, or the fate of people who never should have existed. “It’s… something I’ve been thinking about, I guess. Not as much the specific thing as just the… general concept behind it—erasing an existence. Edogawa Conan’s going to have to disappear someday, you realize that, don’t you?”

“Purposeful forgetfulness out of shame, remorse,” KID says, and it takes a moment for Conan to place the quote.

“It’s an inevitability,” he says instead of the _yeah_ on the tip of his tongue he’s not sure he really agrees with. He hates Conan, but Conan’s also taught him things. Gotten him friends he’d throw himself in front of a knife for. Conan kickstarted the long-overdue clean-out of Tokyo’s rotten underground, and Conan’s _going_ to bring down Karasuma, no questions.

But he hates Conan.

There’s a jumbled mess of contradicting feelings there, between Conan and Shinichi, between Shinichi and Ran. It’s all complicated.

KID hums again. Smooth, low-voiced— “Can I ask you a question?”

He sounds close, again. Picked up the phone, turned off speaker. “Sure,” he yawns. Expects—

“Are you okay?” 

—not that. “I’m sorry?”

Springs squeaking, shuffling of bedsheets. Conan wants to ask him if he’d brushed his teeth, but then KID says, “Last night, do you know why I came with you?” No pause. “I recognized the look on your face. That was… the other kind of tired, wasn’t it? The one that can’t be fixed with sleep.” His voice dips, soft, almost timid, “I have that too, sometimes.”

 _how can i help, detective?_ and two fingers ghosting over his jawline, mockingly seductive—Kaitou KID, deep in his space, pulling the answer out his throat like a ribbon-string of handkerchiefs. This? This is the polar opposite of that: this is KID in his sweats, between his sheets, a little drunk, and the reply slides out Shinichi’s mouth just as easily.

“Ran and I broke up.”

A pause. Drawn out, long enough for Conan to taste his words — bitter —, first time uttered into reality. He’d texted it to Hattori, six days ago, a roundabout, vague version of it. _dude wtf you wanna come over? no scratch that i’m booking you a ticket–_

“I… didn’t know you were dating,” is what KID has to say about that. There’s something in his voice when he does, something Conan doesn’t bother to pick up and pick at.

No eyes, in the dark. It’s incredibly easy to talk. “We were, for a riveting period of three weeks!” He laughs. “I managed to mess that up, so. I guess _that_ ’s over.”        

“What happened?” KID asks, voice as gentle as the rain padding against the windows. It’s been raining all day.

“I slipped. She found out. About Conan,” he clarifies. And then clarifies some more, “That I’ve been lying to her for a year and a half. That I–stood by and watched, as she worried, when she cried.” She’d thought, _were you laughing behind my back?_ humiliated, _did you enjoy making a fool out of me?_ but she didn’t think that, not really. She took it back, later. She really did understand why he did it.

That wasn’t the problem.

KID doesn’t say anything, so Conan throws into the silence, “You want to know the worst part? I think I did it on purpose. I thought–”

 _does this mean we’re dating?_ A glimpse into what could be, into guilt-free lie-free love, so painfully in _reach_ and he wanted it so bad—had he? Had he slipped on purpose?

“Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, does it?” He exhales. “I blew it, is all.” She’d known, she was waiting. “And now there’s this–block between us and no matter what I do or what she does it’s just going to stay there. So…” he looks down, “we broke up. And it just–”  

“It hurts?” KID suggests.

Hm.

“That’s heartbreak, buddy,” he says, easy. “The theme of a couple songs out there.”  

Conan feels his face fall. “I just had this plan, you know?” he whispers. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

A hum, followed by shuffling—KID shifting onto his side. Same position as him. Messy room, probably. Clothes on the desk chair, sleeping laptop and loose paper sheets on the desk. Cups.

“One time,” KID starts, grabs Conan’s full attention, “I performed at this fundraising festival my school set up. It was a crazy hot day, suffocating — ha —, and one of the activities listed was an interschool magic contest. They had this giant cherry pie for whoever won first place—it was, oh, the most stunning thing, you should’ve seen it.”

Dreamy pause. Conan never heard him talk like that about his multi-million yen targets.

“Anyways, my teachers kept pressuring me to compete, and since it was for charity–”

“You signed up for the pie, didn’t you,” Conan cuts in, not sure where this story is heading but grateful for the distraction, nonetheless.

“It was _huge_! Couldn’t even fit on a table. Not that I ever half-ass shows, but that prize? Pretty good moxie fuel. I was there to _win_ that thing, dude. And it was a perfect show! Up until the end, anyway. Someone tried to kill me.”

Conan perks up, alarmed. “What?”

“Someone tried to kill me,” KID repeats, like he thinks Conan didn’t hear him the first time. What. “My last act was an escape trick. A nice, classic Chinese water torture cell. Timeless—everyone always loves it.”

He stills, wide-eyed.

He… doesn’t like where this is going.   

“It was supposed to be a one-minute thing,” KID continues, “Except this girl I know — she’s in love with me — she, well, to this day, I don’t really know what she did, exactly, but I couldn’t get out.”

Conan’s breath hitches in his throat.

“I usually would have found a way even if, you know,” KID says, soft-voiced, “But this girl, how do I–she’s… not exactly normal, you see. Whatever she did, I knew I couldn’t get out of. So when I caught on to what was happening,” lowered tone, a bit ashamed, “it was kind of terrifying, really.”

Small tank, padlocked lid, hunched over, cold water seeping through soaked clothes, metal pressing into his wrists, into the ankles. A performer’s smile. Confidence chippered — eye contact with the killer through dirty glass — slow realization. Pulling at chains, banging the lid.

The audience cheering while he’s drowning.

“What the hell, KID,” he breathes out. That’s horrific.

“Yeah,” KID trails off, absentminded for a moment, before clicking his tongue and snapping back into– “Anyways, I didn’t get that pie.”

Here, now. “That’s not fair,” Conan comments. “You couldn’t have predicted the sabotage.”

“Still lost, though. To some pretentious shmuck in a zebra-print blazer, no less.” _What does this guy have against animal print?_ “That was seriously the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

“The murder attempt? Or–”

“That guy couldn’t find his way out his own closet if neon arrows pointed to the exit, Kudou.”

Twist of his lips, up, amused. “Sounds like you’re still not over it.”

“… Admitting to that would undermine my point.”

“There’s a point?”

“Yeah, it’s a metaphor! I’m not done yet.”

“My bad, carry on.”

He shifts to his other side, the phone squeezed between his cheek and the pillow. Listens to KID’s words and under that, KID’s breathing, steady, regular.

“There’s this moment I think every performer needs to live through,” he’s saying, “where no matter what you do the show’s all fucked and past saving, and you have to let it go. That’s when you make a graceful exit. It begins with acknowledgement.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Well, yeah. It’s a… a hard-earned lesson, but sometimes there’s just no forcing it to happen. When a jealous witch hexes your magic show, you accept that it’s just not going to happen and you gracefully step out of that stage and both you and your public leave with no closure. And, you know,” KID goes on, “sometimes that’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“Of course. The value of the show doesn’t lie in its ending. Otherwise, why not just skip to the last act, right?”

Conan falls silent.

“Look,” KID adds, “I’m sure you had a whole life plan in your head, but stuff happens. Stuff _always_ happen, and it’s never the end of the world. You bury people and you bury relationships and you move on.” Lower, almost to himself, “what else is there to do?”

Whispered words, shared in the dark. Conan considers them. Feels his shoulders slump.

“You know,” he says, “all of that was wildly incoherent and I don’t believe you knew where this was going when you started talking but,” He’s here. “That’s the most sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Well, I’m drunk.”

Conan lets out a silent laugh. “What happened to the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The one who tried to kill you. She’s behind bars now, isn’t she?”

“Oh, nah. She’s still in my class. I have a presentation with her next week.”

“Wh–”

“For the record,” KID interrupts, “everything I just said about closure and being okay with not having one? I only believe in that as a metaphor, okay. If anything actually stopped me from closing my shows with a grand finale I would explode, and die.”

Conan (files his alarm and the little tidbit of fact away for a later date, not planning to permanently let it go whatsoever, but maybe when they’re closer, if) half-smiles. “Did you really leave that stage with grace?”

“No,” he admits. “I screamed right in the jury’s face for five minutes and then I made that pie vanish.”

That sounds more like him. “You’re the weirdest person I know, KID.”

Laughter. “Thank you.”

And then silence, again, floaty, easy, half-asleep. It’s the end of the conversation but the seconds tick away and neither of them hangs up.

Conan glances at the screen.

35:07, 08, 09. 

“Hey, so, what’s the verdict?”

Conan frowns. “On?”

“You said you wanted to see if I was hot.”

 “Oh my g–that was a _joke_.”

But KID insists, “So?”

Question: _if you’re leaving me the choice then why did you put on this whole scheme?_ Answer: _because you’re too damn good and you would have gotten away before I could talk to you_ – This is what Conan gets for not wanting to inflate the thief’s head any bigger than it already is.

“You’re not,” he stutters, “bad-looking.”

“Ah, ah,” KID sounds genuinely pleased, the bastard, “do you really mean it? Or are you just being narcissistic?”

“How is what I said narcissism of any kind?”

“Well, some people would say we look a lot alike.”

“Really?” Conan blinks. Thinks back to… black bedhead curls and taunting smirks, flippant language and slouched postures. Feet on the car dash, chewing nails, popping gum. Absentminded magic. “I don’t see it at all.”

44:04.

“Sooooo…” voice dragged out straining for two seconds like he’s lazily reaching for something the _ffshhh_ of water bottle plastic between hands, “are we going to talk about it?”

Conan raises his eyebrows, skimming over the plot summary of the old, ‘90s manga KID referenced five minutes ago and subsequently booed him for not being familiar with. “What’re you talking about _now_?”

 _pop!_ “The car.”

“Right,” Conan hums, distracted by the premise: switching genders sounded stressful on its own but on and off? Poor guy. “When am I getting it back? That’s my mother’s car, you know.”

There’s a pause, in which KID chugs down what _better_ be water, and then, calmly, “I’m talking about when I shoved my tongue down your throat.”

Conan almost drops his phone, but flails to catch it.

“T-There were no tongues involved!” he yells into the screen. The line crackles with KID’s snickering and Conan scowls, face blushing-hot. “What about it? It was a spur of the moment thing. It didn't mean anything, did it?”

“It did to me.”

Conan’s mind goes

blank.

“I–you mean?“ he stutters to a halt upon realizing whom he’s talking to. The question on his lips is going to backfire, inevitably, and Shinichi’s planning on taking his answer to the _grave_. He has a feeling KID’s not talking about first kisses, anyway. Flirty guy like him? Zero chance. “You–um–”

“Hey, hey, hey,” KID cuts him off, mercifully. “Re _lax_. It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to, obviously. I just,” his tone is breezy, casual as ever, “I wanted you to know.”

Conan winces—definitely not talking about firsts. “I’m sorry if I did anything to lead you on.”

“No, no, no, I’m the one who showed you my ankles," KID says, and then chuckles at his own joke. “Don’t worry about it, Detective. Really.”

“A-Alright…” Conan replies, can’t quite get the guilt out his voice. Shit. He probably shouldn’t have–

“Hey,” KID pipes up before silence has the chance to fill up the line, “totally unrelated, just double-checking—you’re definitely single, right?”

“Er," he frowns, "yes."

“Mmh,” is all KID says about that, and it sounds full of _evil_. “Okay.”

Conan narrows his eyes.

56:00.

“So she shot him three times, clean through–”

“pew-pew-pew,”

“–yes, exactly like that. And then she hid her slippers in the closet, which was ultimately what gave her away, really–”

01:15:00.

“Listen,” Conan interrupts, rummaging around the fridge. “I’m not calling you a liar. I do believe that you believe you saw something.”

 “… That’cho inchulting,” KID says around a mouthful of noodles. An unhealthy lifestyle’s contagious, apparently—hearing the thief indulge in late-night instant ramen had made Conan crave food, abandon his futon.

He rolls his eyes. “You cannot honestly think–”

“I know what I saw, Kudou.”

“KID.” Eggs, milk, leftover kimchi, Ran’s cherry coke. A jar of yuzu kosho. Tupperwares. No trace of the store-bought slice of lemon pie he distinctly recalls shoving into the fridge two days ago. “Were you, at any point during that day, in any way, shape or form, intoxicated–”

“I didn’t have a single drink.”

“Did you smoke anything?”

“ _No_.”

“Did a suspicious stranger offer you candy that tasted funny–”

“Oh my god, fuck off. I was stone-cold sober.”

Conan closes the fridge, stands there. “Sleep paralysis.”

“And awake, and also outside, trying to steal a diamond.”

“Optical illusions. Sunlight reflects, makes you see something that isn’t there–”

“It was night!”

He opens the fridge, again, mindlessly. “Did you check your house for asbestos? Lead, mold.” He spots a small glass bowl full of grated cheddar. “Bad cheese.”

“W–n–yes, bad cheese. I ate some expired parmesan that morning, and it made me hallucinate the entire ordeal. Case solved. Japan’s best detective, everyone: bad cheese.”

“It’s more plausible than _witchcraft,_ ” Conan defends, chewing on cheddar.

Really, he would not have pegged KID as the metaphysically-inclined type. Who knew?

“That’s what it _was_ , though. The fuck you want me to say? She even confessed—it was voodoo.”

Conan ignores him. “Now, the physical phenomenons could be explained–”

“Oh, really? Really. You can explain a night flight through the sky with no hang-glider and a pentagram on fire that stops time– “

“–but the dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath you say you experienced,” Conan frowns. This girl needs to be in prison. “The hot flashes—clearly, that part’s all internal.”

“I don’t even like cheese.”

“ _What?_ ” Conan sighs, so tired. “You don’t like cheese?”

01:41:11.

“Oi.”

Conan lifts the blanket onto his head, cross-legged on his futon, before continuing when he’s sure he’s got KID’s attention. “The keycard, I figured out how you got it,” he pauses, thinks about it, and tacks on a well-deserved, “you bastard.”

“I can’t believe you’re still thinking about that,” KID laughs. “Go ahead.”

He had _not_ needed permission. “You had it the entire time. Last night was a full moon, and you always give the gems back on those. You were planning to drop this one off at the Inspector’s office after you’ve checked it, so you took the building’s master keycard you, what, previously copied?”

“T-t-t, it’s all emulators, my dear tantei-kun.”

Conan doesn’t even dignify that with an answer.

“C’mon, that was funny and you know it,” KID says. “Nakamori’s office has a door lock, actually. Rooms behind card readers tend to be archives, filing—always empty so it’s handy to have access to them, just in case. Yeah," a shrug in his voice, "guilty, I had it the entire time. Was funny to see you lose your mind over it, though.”

Conan _pff_ s. Tightens the blanket around him. Hesitates. “That’s not happening anymore, is it? You’re not planning on giving that gem back.”

He’s met with a sigh. “Again, it’s Suzuki Group property. They’re not gonna file for bankruptcy just ‘cuz I took one of the hundreds of treasures they’re sitting on.”

 _Again_ he says like he’s reiterating. Conan thinks back to last night but has no memory of this subject ever coming up.  

“But why?” he insists. “What’s the deal with this gem, specifically?”

“ _Bzzz_ ,” KID simply says, “Level up to unlock the lore, Detective.”

“I’m bad at video games,” Conan admits easily, and KID scoffs. It’s as far as he goes, but he can’t help but push further, because… because Shinichi’s noticed. KID’s only taking. “Come on, you know my secret. Make the trade, Thief.”

The pause that follows is noticeably crisp, the picture in his head crystal clear—KID in bed, sitting back against the headboard, an ankle over a knee, the coin rolling around his fingers coming to a still, moving to hang up–

“What would you do if I told you?”  

Conan blinks.

 “I… don’t know,” he replies, honestly. KID’s a mystery to him. His drive, his motives—not a single clue. He _does_ look like he has it all under control, but… “Do you need help?”

Another pause, and then… “You’d help me?”

The cautious edge sharping his voice earlier vanished. It leaves him sounding... not _teary_ , that’s ridiculous. Something close, under the disbelief. Something unguarded.

“We have a system,” Conan reminds him.

“ _Fuck_ the system,” KID says, “This is… the only thing I care about, Kudou. If it’s just another favor on the board for you–”

“I want to help,” Conan interrupts him without any hesitation. It’s his job, it’s what he does– “You’re my friend, KID.”

Five whole seconds of silence—Conan thinks the call’s been cut, glances at the screen, almost misses when KID says, “Kuroba.”

“Hm?”

“My name is Kuroba Kaito.”

Conan stills in the dark, eyes wide, mouth open, heartbeat–

“Call me by name, okay?” he continues, manages to sound relaxed, somehow. “You can stop pretending you don’t know it.” A beat, then, lower, a confession, “I’ve never been KID with you, anyway.”

The blanket slides off his hair, hooks onto the crooks of his arms and pools around him. Conan purses his lips, tries very hard to sound just as casual. “Whenever you want, alright?” he simply says. “You don’t have to tell me, and I’m not going to pry, but if you need help, you can come to me. No strings.”

Implied: _the investigative kind of help_. Implied: _I just remembered that you’re a performer, do you really have it all under control?_ Implied: _what the fuck are you involved in?_

“Isn’t it better if Kaitou KID stayed shrouded in mystery, though?” the idiot on the other end of the line asks. “I wouldn’t dream of ruining the illusion for you, tantei-kun.”

Conan rolls his eyes. “I saw you choke on a Dorito, you fucking wish you were an enigma to me.”

Kuroba barks out a short laugh, more surprised than anything.

“Besides,” Conan continues, unimpressed, “I don’t care about that at all.”

Implied...

Conan waits patiently through the next pause, listens to: a sigh, half a laugh (fingers dragging through messy hair) something muttered that sounds like _shit_ and _some escape artist, getting chained down like this–_

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to sleep." Conan’s disappointment must be palpable in the _oh_ he blurts out because Kuroba sighs and says, “I’m not running away, Meitantei. I just can’t have this conversation sleep-deprived.”

Fair enough. “Fair enough. Will you remember this phone call tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m not that drunk. Sobered up, even.”

“Good,” Conan nods, satisfied. “Keep my offer in mind, okay?”

“…Okay,” Kuroba replies, sounding almost timid. Almost.

“And go brush your teeth.”

He hangs up on a groan.

Smiling.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my phone has been dead for the past four hours and i can't find my charger. this correlates directly with me finishing and then posting this chapter. (a month after the last update! i love writing this wip) 
> 
> 1\. this chapter got super long (the talking stage...) and i decided to cut it around page 30. so if you saw /3 no u didnt check again it's /4. also, this is a kaishin, and despite current appearances, it's a happy ending! do not worry. i wouldn't do that to u.
> 
> 2\. credit to calculatrice for the u wish u were an enigma joke. she made it two years ago and i'm still laughing. calc you're so fukcing funny im so sorry i didnt check with u beforehand/notify u of this update
> 
> 3\. if you wanna read the fic check out my bookmarks, but this absolute unit of a castlevania fic called baba used at some point during its thirty-two chapters the “but but but” between three line breaks and I thought about that while writing this chapter and chose to also format it like that bc it’s neat – I’m just specifying this even if it’s a small detail bc it didn’t sit right with me to not mention it lol. we love a good oral-patterned writing x 
> 
> 4\. putting stuff out always gets me so nervous and this chapter moreso bc it's a bit out there. i would love to hear your thoughts. like pls spice up my inbox the last fifty emails i got were from professors trying to teach me things it's so gross
> 
> 5\. To follow-up on Ran and Shinichi (whom I really do love both as separate charas and together) I _do_ have a lot of thoughts about them and their situation, but I'll leave you with a cute song rec, if you want to check it out: [MISO - Take me.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxAiwZlzSD8)
> 
> 6\. As a fellow quarantine content consumer, I hope you guys enjoyed this & I hope you're safe.

**Author's Note:**

> and scene.


End file.
